Lately I've been thinking about the problem where you can fire the second you get that tiny extra 1 point of heat, leading to these accusations of plasma and cannons in general being overpowered, especially when using Biodiesel. My idea is that we add an extra ~5-10 units of heat to the heat bar, and color them differently to signify their purpose. The heat bar will remain the same as it is now, except excess heat after the 'overheat' point will spill over into these extra units, meaning you cannot fire until the heat is gone. This accomplishes the same thing as needing enough heat to fire does, but also still allows the current tactic to be somewhat effective using nukes and other extreme high-heat weapons. I also think that this section of the heat bar should only take half, maybe even a third of the heat from enemy weapons that it would normally take. This gets rid of the annoying cycle of gaining one point of heat and having it instantly filled up again by a fast firing weapon such as DU. An enemy using a weapon designed to overheat you such as plasma can still keep you in the red, meaning any shots you fire off will still require a long time to dissipate the heat they give off, but you can still try to fight back somewhat. Basically the plasma hitting you will reduce your RoF and movement speed drastically, but won't completely disable you. Maybe the zone should be extended into the last 4-5 units of the red zone so that you can still try to get away slowly if you're being overheated.
I think we should keep it the way it is, it allows for plasma to actually be used, until someone decides to change it and actually gets to changing it. Oh and BTW, welcome back :D
Used isn't the same thing as abused, and right now is hardly what you could call balanced. Plasma's always been either overpowered or underpowered. When it's overpowered, it's always because of this 'feature' of the heatbar. When it's underpowered it's because the damage and heat you did to your enemy wasn't enough even with the 'feature' to warrant being a sitting duck in your overheated state. This would hopefully kill two 'features' with one stone; getting rid of this annoying tactic and hopefully allowing plasma to actually be balanced properly. I seriously doubt plasma will find that perfect niche with this problem still in. And thanks, I still lurk around the forums a bit, but 2.24d kinda put me off of Empires; at least until we get a new patch with some better balance.
Plasma should be removed in the next version. Only problem is that we have currently no developer who makes balance decisions.
You are all idiots but the person who created this thread, because he does not lie, plasma is shit from both ends(mouth and ass, you would have to watch southpark about the mouth one) meaning that you shoot, it overheats you like a bitch, but it overheats your enemy like a bitch too, sadly your pissed that you are overheated, but happy that your enemy is overheated. The problem is is that there is a 5/60 chance of your team having a commander who researches plasma. you know what that means? the enemy has a commander who researched DU and Rails and shit like that AND OBLILERATES YOUR BECAUSE EVERYTIME YOU FIGHT BACK YOU OVERHEAT, THAT IS GAY!!! Make plasma create less heat or make the heat bar bigger in the way that the thread creator wanted - to have an area in which movement is possible but shooting is not, and hitting the end of this bar will kill your movement.
we talked a while back about making the heat bar give you dmg if you go over it. I still think thats a good idea.
