Drills feel like they were balanced (or not balanced) for an earlier time and never really got updated; they're much too fragile and especially HEAVY for what they are capable of
On Particles Cannons: You can use Breadboards to intelligently control many features of the PAC using the Generic Block Getter and Setter components and a bare minimum of math. 1: You can set the charge time of the PAC based on the time since it last reloaded with a clamp to control its minimum and maximum charge, allowing all of your PACs to fire with a 30 second charge at the start of the battle before falling back to a quicker fire rate. 2: You can set the overclocking based on battery %*2, so you can automatically balance efficiency and alpha damage. 3: You can probably change the damage type based on target volume, but that's up to you to figure out with math evaluators and/or logic gates. 4: I have been informed that you sadly cannot change the focus setting in the breadboard, it's currently locked. 5: Most importantly, you can detect when a PAC is broken and disable it so it doesn't fire. I do this by enabling firing restrictions in a direction that the lens can't aim, such as straight up/down. 6: RGB particle beams.
How are you automating the focus? That function is locked in the Generic Block Setter. I've been waiting for it to be added for forever. It's the last missing piece to make my ultimate PAC bread.
@@alfa-hf7lp I didn't actually check that setting, I just figured it was available considering the other options. Sorry if I got your hopes up or accidentally spread misinformation.
@@OmicronMkI Dang. I was hoping you knew something I didn't. Just checked and you still can't set the focus with bread. Everything else you said is doable now.
@@dripwastaken7884 To clarify: nukes are for suicide vehicles that basically function like missiles or torpedos. You don't hit vehicles with them like a hammer, that would be silly. XD
The real reason to use the Simple custom shell weapons is that they make a ship look prettier and more realistic. They're decorations that occasionally shoot at enemies.
Correct me if I'm wrong but I do think simple weapons are very convenient volume wise. You'd struggle to make any custom weapon that can fit in a 3x3 that can do as much damage as they do. I use them quite a bit but only on very small craft that would struggle to fit any gun internally, and for that they are very convenient.
I think it should be pointed out that for missiles They do not require sigificant amount of dextection to work Every other weapon requires investment into a dectection suite of some kind Yes that may be cheap But a missile only needs a 360 camera and that will be all it ever needs Unless you are using remote guidance Which has its advantages and disadvantages
@@BorderWise12 one other thing I would point out Missiles have a high upfront cost but volume wise they can be made effective at really small scales Unlike dif aps they are extremely good for dps and alpha strikes The cost of missiles is a bit deceptive Yes for large swarms they are expensive but they also do their damage A small missile warhead is equal to a 200mm aps section Mediums equal to 500mm Large being the 1000mm And huge well I think it’s 2000mm That being said Missiles do not have cost saving measures in the luanchers themselves The key to good missiles is abusing free internal volume for things like fuel or damage
As for missiles not being good as The issue is more to do with aa missiles not being fast missiles Slowing missiles down actually helps them be better in the anti light catagory Of course aa missiles will not easily be cost effective in their role. And likely be poor vs any other target
Radar missiles don't even need that as they have fully circular detection. Then you can just give a missile a one turn and that is enough for the other detection types.
Fun thing to note about plasma cannons is that the shotgun muzzle device is really good at making very very big holes in things with a very small form factor.
I think the Palladium self-owned itself after basically stripping all its power by firing the main laser. That IS the main downside to Lasers imo, as cavities dont like getting touched as do batteries.
gonna be a devils Advocate here. Drills are AMAZING for one very simple craft type, Nuke Suicider. Having a drill or rotating melee of any kind on one od these bad boys lets you burrow in before they detonate. Cuasing MAXIMUM damage. But.. they are janky as hell and a bit op ( last i checked0
@@arytisskaldaka7963 True... but the fact you said "or rotating melee of any kind" gives away that they're not unique - or even ideal - for that role. You could also argue that it's better to just spam more nuke craft than have a heavier, slower, more expensive drill craft. 🤷♂️
@@BorderWise12 True, Dedicated melee crafts are.. situational. Fun as hell when they work, but if you wanna go optimal for a nuke craft... Harpoons to drag the nuke craft in would be the better option as well i think
The TG alarmed is technically a simple weapon (nuke) and drill godly craft - while nukes have a lot of potential counterplay, in reality they're pretty hard to combat, especially when coupled with APS recoil drives
Wow, I forgot about that thing. It is awful. XD My point still stands that any melee weapon only works if you REALLY know your stuff with making good melee vehicles, otherwise they're pretty useless. Also the Alarmed is shut down completely by anything with a properly set up laser system, which is way easier to set up than a proper nuke/drill drone.
@@Enter-wl3zf they are called mass drivers and are banned in campaign vehicles for obvius reasons (thers no counter to them). Theres some workshop vehicles that use them such as the DRD-15 Atomic Hypervelocity Gun Carrier by thunderpanzer
Tip for the video: PAC lose damage AND accuracy over range, it's essentially the CRAM's bigger brother where out of 2km away it's pretty much pretty meh Also right now I think Simple weapons IMO have two great uses not talked about and it's the casemates are durable and have extreme firepower when compared to an APS in the form factor for how much HP/Armor, you can slap it anywhere on your ship easily and wouldn't lose ship durability. Casemate for a 3x3x3 or 3x3x2 box is quite powerful firepower wise considering it is also ARMORED, and High HP, not dying to enemy flak cannons/he very easily and can offer enough firepower as they're also laser guided (all simple APS is). 1.EMP damage, EMP damage how it works will seek for surges if it can reach it, if not it will hit what ever is electronic and do enough damage, the bigger casemate firing two rounds spreads it around enough the thing can take out two devices and ignore surges on big ship. 2.HE CIWS support the HE slow packed round can easily take out small missiles, this makes it so your missiles can focus on larger targets first while they focus on smaller targets. On Submarines where torps are slower, take double damage for being under water, and taking double damage for being a missile, Subs can live with a couple of HE CIWS casemates vs even large missiles. 3. HEAT Support, since they're durable enough to be on the top it can help on beefier ships, and good AA cannon with a fast traveling moderate HE packed HEAT round will one tap some smaller planes, and assist your main guns. There is another god tier CIWS item that gets little love even though the thing is so small, the shard cannon is 3 rounds of I can one tap most medium missiles with an insanely fast and accurate round and will reload before a missile can recharge and take 1 x 3 x 2 space with a full turret already can snipe off medium missiles generally taking 1 or sometimes 2 to kill some bigger missiles it is prob THE BEST simple weapon. The form factor lets you easily slap it on drones , or mass strats who are generally using cheapness and numbers of small specialized craft who might not have the space for a dedicated missile and decoys don't work that well vs late game missiles
Try hollow point-Frag CRAMS, if you do them right, you get a great compromise between the penetration of sabot and the destruction of HE, plus they leave massive craters and that just looks cool
Simple weapons may not be great, but they do have one advantage over all other weapon types. They're much smaller and more compact than a comparable aps or lazer weapon even if they are more expensive for what they do They're great as auxiliary weapons on very small craft such as cheap fighter planes that will usually be primarily armed with missiles that simply don't have the room for another proper weapon system
I'm going to dissent a little on simple weapons. Though they are not as material efficient as other weapons they do offer very very good space efficency. Sure I could build a betteraps than the casemates for 3500, but could I make a better aps in a 3x3 space? Maybe if it was a bad dif gun and even then I'm not sure that's better
I’ve had the game for a few years now, but only recently have I decided to really trying learning as FTD is a more complex game than many others, which I’ve found to be part of its charm. We all have access to the same parts, but it lies with each and every one of us to make them work to their best. The only thing I would add is that torpedoes are really the most effective sub weapons and anti-submarine weapons unless you are using APS/ railguns with super caviton bases or PAC’s. Otherwise I’d have to completely agree with your assessment, but I am partial to making wacky weapons. Like a high powered railgun on a sub to deal with Twin Guard as they can sometimes be tricky little devils.
Of note- flamer fuel calculation was bugged going off fuel output rather than fuel usage- not sure if it got fixed or not but OFTD does know about it. Or put another way, it was showing much higher than required.
@@shawnreed343 oh i havent seen anything in patch notes but i might have to check cause i had a 5x7x5(this may be wrong havent looked at it in a minute) flamer using 20,000 fuel per minute
PACs are my favorite because of there flashy and powerful nature. I’m not sure what there good for yet. Right now I think there meant for being raw damage that you can’t use any cheap tricks to nerf. They serve as the one weapon without a proper counter, the ultimate nuh uh weapon. At the cost of being very powerful and not having a good counter for it they are very volatile and expensive. They can be easily destroyed but can also easily destroy stuff, it’s good for being a onetime heavy hitter as crams can be shot down or deflected, same with missiles. Plasma has a bunch of wasted damage, and aps really aren’t meant for it, and I’ve never seen any lasers of that type. But PACs can’t be shot down can’t be dodged easily and only the damage types can be countered
Thank you for the video. Very informative. I'm an old player returning to the game and not updated to all the balance changes so I've been forced to relearn everything in the game all over again and this tier list is a great way for me to orient myself of the current state of the game.
I'd consider lasers bumped down a tier, after the recent patch. Bungalowbill did some calculations when the fire update happed regarding them and, fire damage included, they ended up just getting a straight damage nerf, with some of that shifted to fire damage, when they shifted from AP to intensity. On top of this, before the update, defending against lasers- smoke or planar shields or both, moved laser damage from one of the best in the game per cost on par with rail-assisted APS sand behind CRAM to one of the worst in the game- it's worse now, because water also really nerfs that fire damage beyond the damage nerf. They're still good AA; and Lams is still the uniqueness that is Lams, but I actually like plasma better, personally. I'd also probably split APS between non-rail and rail by about a tier... err, like more than half a tier but less than a full tier, if that makes sense? Because rail power adds so very much for APS. Including, but not limited to, making shells too fast for LAMS to take out. Flamers are also in a weird spot. Like I agree with you on their placement mostly, but they're actually really effective at punching up when paired with the right vehicle. Something small and fast- in order to stay within that 400m range, but they actually output a lot of damage over time for their cost. Like really good, if you've got the intensity up. But that also means they -aren't- very good on big, slow things. I also have to say that I think the whole tier list shifts if defensive counters are considered or not. And I mean, all counters for all the weapons, or just 'ability to do damage for cost in favorable conditions'. For instance, a lot of weapons are just hardcountered by water so if something can't kill a submarine, that could affect it's score, whereas flipside that same weapon might do stellar at something above water. And there's CIWs, and LAMs, and planar shields, and smoke, and chaff, and anti-munition missiles, and so on; uncounterable weapons get a boost if 'counterplay must be considered'. My personal pick for top of the pile S-tier weapon? Rail-assisted sandblaster. As long as your shell is prepared for what you'll be facing. If Cram misses are taken into account, it's likely to outpace doom-cram for damage per cost. Though the best damaging weapon in the game? According to bungalowbill, melee lasers. Having seen the demonstration of it, I'm inclined to agree. Fun vid. And it's interesting, that there's room for subjectivity for a tierlist like this because even with hard numbers and facts, there's differences in how people build which play a factor in effectiveness, too- and one person's A might be another's B and vice-versa, not just in mental consideration, but in how they actually perform based on those builder's styles. :)
I wasn't aware of BungalowBill's calculations, thanks for mentioning that! I'd still rank lasers pretty high, since I've found that they're still by far the best weapon for dealing with suicide craft.
@@BorderWise12 I think I can agree with that. And yeah, they're still fine, they just aren't OP these days. Although- they might actually be ~better~ AA these days because they start fires and flying things don't deal with fire well, well, unless flying thing is laser-protected.
@@ham_the_spam4423 if you havent found your answer yet, yes, breaking off a part of the ring shield causes all the stored energy to shoot out, with what might as well be infinite ap potential at higher values, its still not a good weapon since it only breaks straight through in a 1 by 1 line but it can be used for fun in testing like cutting a megalodon into 2 perfect halves.
APS all day every day for me with a dash of PACS.....I WISH i could love crams but I can never get them to work good....also a fast well balanced and armored skimmer+spinblocks+rams=s-tier results and is so satisfying to do, works great in packs or with other fire support....and yea....lasers exist....usually just for my LAMBS though.....im bad at engine building so what energy I get goes into my PACS and whats left over can keep missiles and crams from touching me.
I strongly believe you didn't give flamers enough credit. Their range and DPS are considerably cons, but there are pros too: there isn't a way to block flames, you can't even armour yourself against flames, they ignore all of your enemies schemes, they soften up the armour of the enemy, making penetration with other weapons much easier, you will win long fights almost every time because they scale the hell out of the enemy. I would give them at least c tier, if not b. I build a close combat frontsider, that can kill a meg and it only costs 450k that uses one half flamers on half cram.
Point taken, but: 1. Spaced armor (especially of stone and metal) works well against flames, since fire damage can't jump between air gaps. Keeping the bulk of your craft below the waterline also works very well. 2. You'll win a long fight, sure, but not if the enemy does damage faster and despawns your craft first. 3. Frontsiders generally have an advantage vs broadsiders anyway, and having CRAMs in the mix would make your craft do a lot more damage relatively more quickly. So it's not a good comparison. When comparing weapons, it's helpful to isolate them completely. E.g, if you had a APS-only ship vs a flamer-only ship, all other things being equal, which one would win? I personally stand by my placing for them, although your comment has made me want to build a rushdown flamer airship again... 🤔
1. Spaced armour is a problem, that's true. But not as much as one might think, as if it is breached in one point, all the damage potential in the fuel of the outside gets access to the innards as well. 2. Definitely true. Flamers are everything but front loaded in damage. 3. That's both true. The thing is, flamers in a direct comparison are really weak weapons to most other stuff. Your rating is fair in that regard. But the ability to reduce the AC of the target while being able to spread evenly is a godsend against heavily armoured bricks. The damage on its own isn't that good, but them being able to amplify the damage of the other weapons is insane. The design philosophy of my frontsider (it's a sidesider, but that's irrelevant here) is to roast off the outer layer of the enemy, the detection components and barrels, then letting the crams punch a hole and connecting the flame from the outside to the inside. It works heavenly. The combination flamers + frag aps is godlike as well. In my book the flamer is a good support weapon, if supplied with enough oxidizer and that should up their ranking overall. If the synergy of the different weapon types weren't for discussion here... Oh well, my bad XD Plasma cannons are mathematically best at three to five charges, to drop that somewhere. The damage to materials ration then isn't as bad anymore. Anyways, I loved the video and wanted to share my thoughts. Thanks for answering!
Cram is a lot better against anything thats not under water if you build them big enough and use a Time from lauch fuse with a laster targeter at an offset. They really mess up the large airships with the addition of fire dmg
@@BorderWise12 thats what the time from launch fuse is for, they explode next to the ship even if they miss sending frags trough them in angels that the airship isnt build to withstand
I still too looking for simple anti squire missile system... no luck as it is unreliable and when it works absolutely useless weapon on any other target
@@ethandye8764 Yup, it does. Is it worth it to set up a short range weapon to soften up something for weapons that are good against armor anyway? ... depends on your playstyle! 😅👍
@@BorderWise12 i like the incendiary in missiles with about 30 intensity and 10% oxidizer coupled with frags if i have extraspace in the missile, then fast aps shells to expand the holes
I'm personally disappointed with missiles the most. It seems they're best used as decoys, sonar buoys, harpoons, and munition defense rather than attacking. So many things are so tanky that small and medium missiles only seem useful if they carry EMP, but the large and huge are extremely space intensive, ammo intensive, long reloads even for shorter lengths and easily countered by LAMS, APS CIWS, Interceptor missiles, decoys and all. Outside of DWG they feel extremely underwhelming. With the tactical nuke, it's extremely useful as a torpedo warhead. The buff to make underwater explosions past 5m more powerful applies to all sources of explosions, not just missiles now. It's extremely common to see 300k HE dmg from a nuke torpedo against steel and HA ships My personal design has a separator so that it can be air dropped, has its own guidance with active 90 and passive sonar, as well as a top speed of about 70m/s underwater, for roughly 5-6k mats. In an ASW role it's great for crippling or outright killing even large submarines, though it can be shot down by ships with decent APS or lasers and underwater detection. Hell I built torps with simple nukes because of how underwhelming medium missiles were as torps and unwieldy and expensive large and huge were.
37:06 please don't use flak as offensive armament 😢 there's so little armor piercing it can't even scratch wood (also it's not recommended to use anything that isn't hitscan on evasive aircraft)
the other downside to flamers is more a core downside from the depths is or was a boat game. with the exception of the land campaign battles will be taking place over under from or toward water and the wave physics in from the depths do not do flamers any favors dont get me wrong fire as a catagory is nuts if done right. but the flamer isnt even the thing that does it the best.
There's a funny use case for drills, but as armor, not a weapon. Large steam drill bits are very, very tough. The 7x7 drill bit is one of the most durable single blocks in the game with 50,000 HP and 60 AC; it's only *maybe* beaten out by the huge missiles hatch with 60,000 HP and 50 AC, and that's both a lot more expensive and two blocks thick to the drill bit's one. For comparison, a 7x7 HA duct is 37,500 HP and 60 AC, though it is 20% cheaper than the 7x7 drill bit. Why does this matter? Because big pierce PACs and sabot railguns exist. Pierce PAC in particular doesn't care about armor stacking or angle of impact, only raw HP so hitting that drill bit is exactly the same as hitting regular armor, except it packs 8.33 meters worth of HA beams into 1 meter of depth. The numbers aren't as good for sabot railguns because those do care about impact angle, but it's still far more protection than you could get otherwise. Stick a couple around your AI and it becomes quite a bit harder to AI snipe your vehicle, or you can integrate them into the main armor on a frontsider since those usually get clapped by that kind of attack.
That is an excellent point, and it makes drills weirdly enough the opposite of ring shields: Ring shields are defenses that work better as weapons, and apparently drills are weapons that work better as armor. XD
@@BorderWise12 I'm not sure ring shields are even good at that any more. With the 4.0 update, the devs capped the amount of damage a ring shield can store up instead of it just infinitely building up like it used to. In theory this makes them safer to use for their intended purpose, but in practice the damage built up is still enough that you really don't want them going off inside your craft. It was actually a double whammy for ring shields that update. Their unintended use as a weapon got nerfed, AND their intended role is less powerful because they not only don't increase fire resistance, but the AC increase they give *is* reduced by fire damage. I really think they need looked at in the wake of the fire update.
Advanced cannons are the second best weapon for any occasion, as opposed to being the best weapon for a specific occasion
@@twiexcursori Yup, good way of putting it. 👍
Drills feel like they were balanced (or not balanced) for an earlier time and never really got updated; they're much too fragile and especially HEAVY for what they are capable of
Even when drills came out, they were severely outclassed by spinblock rams.
@@Feraligono RIP drill, outclassed by an improved drill
You just drop them. Its a style thing. You can build really annoying mini bots with drills.
Also steam drills are so much more powerful (and pretty)
Just go onto the game files and buff them yourself i used to do that for glass because I kept getting pilot murdered by timed frag in my planes
On Particles Cannons: You can use Breadboards to intelligently control many features of the PAC using the Generic Block Getter and Setter components and a bare minimum of math.
1: You can set the charge time of the PAC based on the time since it last reloaded with a clamp to control its minimum and maximum charge, allowing all of your PACs to fire with a 30 second charge at the start of the battle before falling back to a quicker fire rate.
2: You can set the overclocking based on battery %*2, so you can automatically balance efficiency and alpha damage.
3: You can probably change the damage type based on target volume, but that's up to you to figure out with math evaluators and/or logic gates.
4: I have been informed that you sadly cannot change the focus setting in the breadboard, it's currently locked.
5: Most importantly, you can detect when a PAC is broken and disable it so it doesn't fire. I do this by enabling firing restrictions in a direction that the lens can't aim, such as straight up/down.
6: RGB particle beams.
@@OmicronMkI True, they are very controllable like that. Couldn't really fit that into the vid, though.
RGB particle beams is the most important
How are you automating the focus? That function is locked in the Generic Block Setter. I've been waiting for it to be added for forever. It's the last missing piece to make my ultimate PAC bread.
@@alfa-hf7lp I didn't actually check that setting, I just figured it was available considering the other options. Sorry if I got your hopes up or accidentally spread misinformation.
@@OmicronMkI Dang. I was hoping you knew something I didn't. Just checked and you still can't set the focus with bread. Everything else you said is doable now.
"Nukes are melee weapons"
The random that got this video recommendet without knowing the game: WHAT?
@@dripwastaken7884 To clarify: nukes are for suicide vehicles that basically function like missiles or torpedos. You don't hit vehicles with them like a hammer, that would be silly. XD
@@BorderWise12 you have to agree that it would be great fun to have a boom stick on your ship that just bonks the enemy with a nuke
@@dripwastaken7884 nuclear lunge mine
@@BorderWise12 Ah, but you can make hammer-shaped missiles with nukes in them, and hit ships with it.
I am now imaging the Demon Core as a mace.
The real reason to use the Simple custom shell weapons is that they make a ship look prettier and more realistic.
They're decorations that occasionally shoot at enemies.
Correct me if I'm wrong but I do think simple weapons are very convenient volume wise. You'd struggle to make any custom weapon that can fit in a 3x3 that can do as much damage as they do. I use them quite a bit but only on very small craft that would struggle to fit any gun internally, and for that they are very convenient.
True, they are very compact, which is something I glossed over a bit. Very small craft are often better off with missiles in my experience, though.
Missiles
The Bofors one is surprisingly effective as AA since the flak rips apart wooden parts on DWG air units
Disclaimer: there are points where I say 'particle cannon' where I meant 'plasma cannon'.
Why do those things sound so similar...
Dyslexia
they both start with P
Pin this perhaps?
I think it should be pointed out that for missiles
They do not require sigificant amount of dextection to work
Every other weapon requires investment into a dectection suite of some kind
Yes that may be cheap
But a missile only needs a 360 camera and that will be all it ever needs
Unless you are using remote guidance
Which has its advantages and disadvantages
Good point, that's worth mentioning! What you spend on the missile you save on GPP.
@@BorderWise12 one other thing I would point out
Missiles have a high upfront cost but volume wise they can be made effective at really small scales
Unlike dif aps they are extremely good for dps and alpha strikes
The cost of missiles is a bit deceptive
Yes for large swarms they are expensive but they also do their damage
A small missile warhead is equal to a 200mm aps section
Mediums equal to 500mm
Large being the 1000mm
And huge well I think it’s 2000mm
That being said
Missiles do not have cost saving measures in the luanchers themselves
The key to good missiles is abusing free internal volume for things like fuel or damage
As for missiles not being good as
The issue is more to do with aa missiles not being fast missiles
Slowing missiles down actually helps them be better in the anti light catagory
Of course aa missiles will not easily be cost effective in their role. And likely be poor vs any other target
Radar missiles don't even need that as they have fully circular detection. Then you can just give a missile a one turn and that is enough for the other detection types.
Fun thing to note about plasma cannons is that the shotgun muzzle device is really good at making very very big holes in things with a very small form factor.
Yup! The splitter is the best thing for DoomPlasma. 👍
I think the Palladium self-owned itself after basically stripping all its power by firing the main laser. That IS the main downside to Lasers imo, as cavities dont like getting touched as do batteries.
Weirdly, I only ever have problems with lasers because of how large they need to be
gonna be a devils Advocate here. Drills are AMAZING for one very simple craft type, Nuke Suicider. Having a drill or rotating melee of any kind on one od these bad boys lets you burrow in before they detonate. Cuasing MAXIMUM damage. But.. they are janky as hell and a bit op ( last i checked0
@@arytisskaldaka7963 True... but the fact you said "or rotating melee of any kind" gives away that they're not unique - or even ideal - for that role. You could also argue that it's better to just spam more nuke craft than have a heavier, slower, more expensive drill craft. 🤷♂️
@@BorderWise12 True, Dedicated melee crafts are.. situational. Fun as hell when they work, but if you wanna go optimal for a nuke craft... Harpoons to drag the nuke craft in would be the better option as well i think
@@arytisskaldaka7963 I keep forgetting about harpoons, darn it. XD
The TG alarmed is technically a simple weapon (nuke) and drill godly craft - while nukes have a lot of potential counterplay, in reality they're pretty hard to combat, especially when coupled with APS recoil drives
Wow, I forgot about that thing. It is awful. XD
My point still stands that any melee weapon only works if you REALLY know your stuff with making good melee vehicles, otherwise they're pretty useless.
Also the Alarmed is shut down completely by anything with a properly set up laser system, which is way easier to set up than a proper nuke/drill drone.
This sounds really interesting :)
Can you point me towards an example craft that uses this APS drive?
@@Enter-wl3zf they are called mass drivers and are banned in campaign vehicles for obvius reasons (thers no counter to them). Theres some workshop vehicles that use them such as the DRD-15 Atomic Hypervelocity Gun Carrier by thunderpanzer
@@dripwastaken7884 they have been patched as i have tried to build one recently and no dice that or i did it wrong
@@hypernovamkvi715 good to know
Tip for the video: PAC lose damage AND accuracy over range, it's essentially the CRAM's bigger brother where out of 2km away it's pretty much pretty meh
Also right now I think Simple weapons IMO have two great uses not talked about and it's the casemates are durable and have extreme firepower when compared to an APS in the form factor for how much HP/Armor, you can slap it anywhere on your ship easily and wouldn't lose ship durability.
Casemate for a 3x3x3 or 3x3x2 box is quite powerful firepower wise considering it is also ARMORED, and High HP, not dying to enemy flak cannons/he very easily and can offer enough firepower as they're also laser guided (all simple APS is).
1.EMP damage, EMP damage how it works will seek for surges if it can reach it, if not it will hit what ever is electronic and do enough damage, the bigger casemate firing two rounds spreads it around enough the thing can take out two devices and ignore surges on big ship.
2.HE CIWS support the HE slow packed round can easily take out small missiles, this makes it so your missiles can focus on larger targets first while they focus on smaller targets. On Submarines where torps are slower, take double damage for being under water, and taking double damage for being a missile, Subs can live with a couple of HE CIWS casemates vs even large missiles.
3. HEAT Support, since they're durable enough to be on the top it can help on beefier ships, and good AA cannon with a fast traveling moderate HE packed HEAT round will one tap some smaller planes, and assist your main guns.
There is another god tier CIWS item that gets little love even though the thing is so small, the shard cannon is 3 rounds of I can one tap most medium missiles with an insanely fast and accurate round and will reload before a missile can recharge and take 1 x 3 x 2 space with a full turret already can snipe off medium missiles generally taking 1 or sometimes 2 to kill some bigger missiles it is prob THE BEST simple weapon. The form factor lets you easily slap it on drones , or mass strats who are generally using cheapness and numbers of small specialized craft who might not have the space for a dedicated missile and decoys don't work that well vs late game missiles
Something I'd like to note: Plasma was made to counter Armor Bricks and wedge spam armor.
For me simple weapons have one positive over most,they are run small,if room is a factor they can fit where real weapons wont
Simple gatling CIWS on really fast but tiny planes is GROSSLY underrated
Try hollow point-Frag CRAMS, if you do them right, you get a great compromise between the penetration of sabot and the destruction of HE, plus they leave massive craters and that just looks cool
@@cheezebagz729 I have! They're great fun, but not as good as AP-Frag, unfortunately.
Simple weapons may not be great, but they do have one advantage over all other weapon types.
They're much smaller and more compact than a comparable aps or lazer weapon even if they are more expensive for what they do
They're great as auxiliary weapons on very small craft such as cheap fighter planes that will usually be primarily armed with missiles that simply don't have the room for another proper weapon system
I find simple weapons useful for small craft and places where cant fit a big weapon system .
I'm going to dissent a little on simple weapons. Though they are not as material efficient as other weapons they do offer very very good space efficency. Sure I could build a betteraps than the casemates for 3500, but could I make a better aps in a 3x3 space? Maybe if it was a bad dif gun and even then I'm not sure that's better
I’d say missiles can definitely go up a tier since they can become absolute monsters with lua scripting
Great video! I was wondering if you could do a series where you take a look at different type of aps shells, kinda like a deep dive.
Particle Cannons not being in S tier bothers me WAAAAY too much lol
I’ve had the game for a few years now, but only recently have I decided to really trying learning as FTD is a more complex game than many others, which I’ve found to be part of its charm. We all have access to the same parts, but it lies with each and every one of us to make them work to their best.
The only thing I would add is that torpedoes are really the most effective sub weapons and anti-submarine weapons unless you are using APS/ railguns with super caviton bases or PAC’s.
Otherwise I’d have to completely agree with your assessment, but I am partial to making wacky weapons. Like a high powered railgun on a sub to deal with Twin Guard as they can sometimes be tricky little devils.
flamers looks great, works great, looks cheap, takes way to much fuel to be practical at even a medium scale
(edit) This is in my experience.
Of note- flamer fuel calculation was bugged going off fuel output rather than fuel usage- not sure if it got fixed or not but OFTD does know about it. Or put another way, it was showing much higher than required.
@@shawnreed343 oh i havent seen anything in patch notes but i might have to check cause i had a 5x7x5(this may be wrong havent looked at it in a minute) flamer using 20,000 fuel per minute
PACs are my favorite because of there flashy and powerful nature. I’m not sure what there good for yet. Right now I think there meant for being raw damage that you can’t use any cheap tricks to nerf. They serve as the one weapon without a proper counter, the ultimate nuh uh weapon. At the cost of being very powerful and not having a good counter for it they are very volatile and expensive. They can be easily destroyed but can also easily destroy stuff, it’s good for being a onetime heavy hitter as crams can be shot down or deflected, same with missiles. Plasma has a bunch of wasted damage, and aps really aren’t meant for it, and I’ve never seen any lasers of that type. But PACs can’t be shot down can’t be dodged easily and only the damage types can be countered
Thank you for the video. Very informative. I'm an old player returning to the game and not updated to all the balance changes so I've been forced to relearn everything in the game all over again and this tier list is a great way for me to orient myself of the current state of the game.
@@Proletarian-ud8du You're welcome! Glad to have helped. :)
I'd consider lasers bumped down a tier, after the recent patch. Bungalowbill did some calculations when the fire update happed regarding them and, fire damage included, they ended up just getting a straight damage nerf, with some of that shifted to fire damage, when they shifted from AP to intensity. On top of this, before the update, defending against lasers- smoke or planar shields or both, moved laser damage from one of the best in the game per cost on par with rail-assisted APS sand behind CRAM to one of the worst in the game- it's worse now, because water also really nerfs that fire damage beyond the damage nerf. They're still good AA; and Lams is still the uniqueness that is Lams, but I actually like plasma better, personally. I'd also probably split APS between non-rail and rail by about a tier... err, like more than half a tier but less than a full tier, if that makes sense? Because rail power adds so very much for APS. Including, but not limited to, making shells too fast for LAMS to take out.
Flamers are also in a weird spot. Like I agree with you on their placement mostly, but they're actually really effective at punching up when paired with the right vehicle. Something small and fast- in order to stay within that 400m range, but they actually output a lot of damage over time for their cost. Like really good, if you've got the intensity up. But that also means they -aren't- very good on big, slow things.
I also have to say that I think the whole tier list shifts if defensive counters are considered or not. And I mean, all counters for all the weapons, or just 'ability to do damage for cost in favorable conditions'. For instance, a lot of weapons are just hardcountered by water so if something can't kill a submarine, that could affect it's score, whereas flipside that same weapon might do stellar at something above water. And there's CIWs, and LAMs, and planar shields, and smoke, and chaff, and anti-munition missiles, and so on; uncounterable weapons get a boost if 'counterplay must be considered'. My personal pick for top of the pile S-tier weapon? Rail-assisted sandblaster. As long as your shell is prepared for what you'll be facing. If Cram misses are taken into account, it's likely to outpace doom-cram for damage per cost. Though the best damaging weapon in the game? According to bungalowbill, melee lasers. Having seen the demonstration of it, I'm inclined to agree.
Fun vid. And it's interesting, that there's room for subjectivity for a tierlist like this because even with hard numbers and facts, there's differences in how people build which play a factor in effectiveness, too- and one person's A might be another's B and vice-versa, not just in mental consideration, but in how they actually perform based on those builder's styles. :)
I wasn't aware of BungalowBill's calculations, thanks for mentioning that! I'd still rank lasers pretty high, since I've found that they're still by far the best weapon for dealing with suicide craft.
@@BorderWise12 I think I can agree with that. And yeah, they're still fine, they just aren't OP these days. Although- they might actually be ~better~ AA these days because they start fires and flying things don't deal with fire well, well, unless flying thing is laser-protected.
Drills are better armour than they are weapons, the opposite of ring shields
...ring shields can be weaponized?
@@ham_the_spam4423 if you havent found your answer yet, yes, breaking off a part of the ring shield causes all the stored energy to shoot out, with what might as well be infinite ap potential at higher values, its still not a good weapon since it only breaks straight through in a 1 by 1 line but it can be used for fun in testing like cutting a megalodon into 2 perfect halves.
APS all day every day for me with a dash of PACS.....I WISH i could love crams but I can never get them to work good....also a fast well balanced and armored skimmer+spinblocks+rams=s-tier results and is so satisfying to do, works great in packs or with other fire support....and yea....lasers exist....usually just for my LAMBS though.....im bad at engine building so what energy I get goes into my PACS and whats left over can keep missiles and crams from touching me.
there is a mod that alows you to make giant cram barrels
i got 257 incher
cramm cannon
biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiig gun
I strongly believe you didn't give flamers enough credit. Their range and DPS are considerably cons, but there are pros too: there isn't a way to block flames, you can't even armour yourself against flames, they ignore all of your enemies schemes, they soften up the armour of the enemy, making penetration with other weapons much easier, you will win long fights almost every time because they scale the hell out of the enemy.
I would give them at least c tier, if not b.
I build a close combat frontsider, that can kill a meg and it only costs 450k that uses one half flamers on half cram.
Point taken, but:
1. Spaced armor (especially of stone and metal) works well against flames, since fire damage can't jump between air gaps. Keeping the bulk of your craft below the waterline also works very well.
2. You'll win a long fight, sure, but not if the enemy does damage faster and despawns your craft first.
3. Frontsiders generally have an advantage vs broadsiders anyway, and having CRAMs in the mix would make your craft do a lot more damage relatively more quickly. So it's not a good comparison.
When comparing weapons, it's helpful to isolate them completely. E.g, if you had a APS-only ship vs a flamer-only ship, all other things being equal, which one would win? I personally stand by my placing for them, although your comment has made me want to build a rushdown flamer airship again... 🤔
1. Spaced armour is a problem, that's true. But not as much as one might think, as if it is breached in one point, all the damage potential in the fuel of the outside gets access to the innards as well.
2. Definitely true. Flamers are everything but front loaded in damage.
3. That's both true.
The thing is, flamers in a direct comparison are really weak weapons to most other stuff. Your rating is fair in that regard. But the ability to reduce the AC of the target while being able to spread evenly is a godsend against heavily armoured bricks. The damage on its own isn't that good, but them being able to amplify the damage of the other weapons is insane.
The design philosophy of my frontsider (it's a sidesider, but that's irrelevant here) is to roast off the outer layer of the enemy, the detection components and barrels, then letting the crams punch a hole and connecting the flame from the outside to the inside. It works heavenly. The combination flamers + frag aps is godlike as well.
In my book the flamer is a good support weapon, if supplied with enough oxidizer and that should up their ranking overall. If the synergy of the different weapon types weren't for discussion here... Oh well, my bad XD
Plasma cannons are mathematically best at three to five charges, to drop that somewhere. The damage to materials ration then isn't as bad anymore.
Anyways, I loved the video and wanted to share my thoughts. Thanks for answering!
Personally I put Laser in A.
Cram is a lot better against anything thats not under water if you build them big enough and use a Time from lauch fuse with a laster targeter at an offset. They really mess up the large airships with the addition of fire dmg
@@dripwastaken7884 ... assuming they can hit them at all. Try hitting the Tarpon with CRAMS. 😅
@@BorderWise12 thats what the time from launch fuse is for, they explode next to the ship even if they miss sending frags trough them in angels that the airship isnt build to withstand
My favorite exampel of this is the modern day singularity, 1 missed cram that explodes on top or below it and the whole thing light itself up and dies
I thought flamethrowers have higher firepower/material than cram cannons do now
@@ateslabattery115 They technically do... but their shortcomings mean that in practice they do less damage.
I still too looking for simple anti squire missile system... no luck as it is unreliable and when it works absolutely useless weapon on any other target
doesn't fire reduce AC of blocks as it burns though? solid secondary weapon imo
@@ethandye8764 Yup, it does. Is it worth it to set up a short range weapon to soften up something for weapons that are good against armor anyway?
... depends on your playstyle! 😅👍
Lasers also reduce the ac of things btw!
@@BorderWise12 i like the incendiary in missiles with about 30 intensity and 10% oxidizer coupled with frags if i have extraspace in the missile, then fast aps shells to expand the holes
Its kinda funny how every weapon with incidiary ammo is better than the flamer at fire damage
Its kinda funny how every weapon with incidiary ammo is better than the flamer at fire damage
I'm personally disappointed with missiles the most. It seems they're best used as decoys, sonar buoys, harpoons, and munition defense rather than attacking.
So many things are so tanky that small and medium missiles only seem useful if they carry EMP, but the large and huge are extremely space intensive, ammo intensive, long reloads even for shorter lengths and easily countered by LAMS, APS CIWS, Interceptor missiles, decoys and all. Outside of DWG they feel extremely underwhelming.
With the tactical nuke, it's extremely useful as a torpedo warhead. The buff to make underwater explosions past 5m more powerful applies to all sources of explosions, not just missiles now. It's extremely common to see 300k HE dmg from a nuke torpedo against steel and HA ships My personal design has a separator so that it can be air dropped, has its own guidance with active 90 and passive sonar, as well as a top speed of about 70m/s underwater, for roughly 5-6k mats. In an ASW role it's great for crippling or outright killing even large submarines, though it can be shot down by ships with decent APS or lasers and underwater detection.
Hell I built torps with simple nukes because of how underwhelming medium missiles were as torps and unwieldy and expensive large and huge were.
37:06 please don't use flak as offensive armament 😢 there's so little armor piercing it can't even scratch wood (also it's not recommended to use anything that isn't hitscan on evasive aircraft)
the other downside to flamers is more a core downside
from the depths is or was a boat game.
with the exception of the land campaign
battles will be taking place over under from or toward water and the wave physics in from the depths do not do flamers any favors
dont get me wrong fire as a catagory is nuts if done right. but the flamer isnt even the thing that does it the best.
Aps cannons on top 😤😤😤
There's a funny use case for drills, but as armor, not a weapon.
Large steam drill bits are very, very tough. The 7x7 drill bit is one of the most durable single blocks in the game with 50,000 HP and 60 AC; it's only *maybe* beaten out by the huge missiles hatch with 60,000 HP and 50 AC, and that's both a lot more expensive and two blocks thick to the drill bit's one. For comparison, a 7x7 HA duct is 37,500 HP and 60 AC, though it is 20% cheaper than the 7x7 drill bit.
Why does this matter? Because big pierce PACs and sabot railguns exist. Pierce PAC in particular doesn't care about armor stacking or angle of impact, only raw HP so hitting that drill bit is exactly the same as hitting regular armor, except it packs 8.33 meters worth of HA beams into 1 meter of depth. The numbers aren't as good for sabot railguns because those do care about impact angle, but it's still far more protection than you could get otherwise. Stick a couple around your AI and it becomes quite a bit harder to AI snipe your vehicle, or you can integrate them into the main armor on a frontsider since those usually get clapped by that kind of attack.
That is an excellent point, and it makes drills weirdly enough the opposite of ring shields:
Ring shields are defenses that work better as weapons, and apparently drills are weapons that work better as armor. XD
@@BorderWise12 I'm not sure ring shields are even good at that any more. With the 4.0 update, the devs capped the amount of damage a ring shield can store up instead of it just infinitely building up like it used to. In theory this makes them safer to use for their intended purpose, but in practice the damage built up is still enough that you really don't want them going off inside your craft.
It was actually a double whammy for ring shields that update. Their unintended use as a weapon got nerfed, AND their intended role is less powerful because they not only don't increase fire resistance, but the AC increase they give *is* reduced by fire damage. I really think they need looked at in the wake of the fire update.
unfair for missiles
you used the worst one,
for cram you used your custom best
PS kudos for Tim Curry's SPACE
Watch lathlands
most awful tierlist ive seen to this day