I mentioned this befor in another post... but its gotten burried so far.. figured i'd repost this issue ive run into, and be a bit more descriptive... maybe one century i'll actualy get a reponce from one of the Developers on it... But, anyway, i can understand why torpedo's share a reuse timmer, but why does every single ship weapon in the game share timmers with each other? For example. If you try fitting 2 beam weapons on the front of your ship, only 1 will EVER be able to fire, Try fitting 2 dual cannons onto the front of your ship? only 1 will EVER be able to fire. fit 2 heavy Cannons.. again.. only ONE will ever be able to fire.

Im all for being able to carry differen types of weapons at the same time on my ship.. i love versatility.. but the way the current weapon programming is... its IMPOSIBLE to do anything other than 1 set setup.. lets take a later tier ship for example... say an escort with 4 forward faceing weapons..

Here is what "i" personaly would do if i could:

2x Heavy Phaser Cannons
1x Dual Phaser Array
1x Phaser Beam

now.. that is what i personaly would do.. but i cant.. why?.. because only 1 of those heavy phaser cannons will EVER FIRE. i'll NEVER be able to use them both at once.. because they both share the same re-use timmer. Even if i took one of those heavy phaser cannons and replaced it with a Heavy Diruspter cannon only ONE will ever be allowed to fire, why?.. because their both in the 'heavy disrupter' class of weapon which SHARES reuse timmers. (just like torpedo's)

Here is what 'will' work under the current programming code:

1x Heavy Phaser Cannon
1x Phaser Cannon
1x Torpedo Launcher
1x Phaser Beam

See the difference?.. with The above settup i CAN actualy fire every weapon i have equiped at one time.. not 3 out of 4, not 2 out of 4.. ALL 4.. at one time. What is the problem then?.. simple IM FORCED INTO A SET SYSTEM. I dont WANT to have to use a smaller weapon just so that i can actualy 'use' that 4th slot.. i WANT 2 big guns up front with long cycle times.. but i want BOTH of those big guns to work at the same time.. i dont want that 2nd equiped gun to be nothing but waisted space.

Again, i can understand why we cant use two or more torpedo lanchers at one time, at the moment their just to powerfull.. But you CAN NOT use that excuse for the rest of the weapons in the game.. so why are we forced to use a cookie cutter build nomather what we do? Takeing a peek at the upper tier 4 and 5 ships... were some have up to 6 or 7 forward faceing weapons?.. Are there even that many DIFFERENT types of weapon systems in the game?.. or is the 'fire all weapons' going to be 100% useless in the upper tiers cause only 4 of those 7 guns are ever actualy going to be able to fire?

Is this something the Dev's have even taken notice of? or is it 'working as intended' ?... if its actualy sapose to be this way... i prolly whont stay with STO past tier 2... im sorry but i very likely whont... as i cannot see the point in giveing ships multiple weapon slots.. but NOT letting them actualy USE them in ways that we think up.

And while i hate to bring up another game.. if this IS the way the game designers want it to be, i'll veary likely leave STO and go back to EVE.. atleast there, when i get a ship that lets me equip 4 guns and 2 missles i can actualy USE all of those weapons at ONE TIME.

And sorry if this comes off as a rant... realy its not meant to be one.. im just frustrated that we cant seem to get an answer to this question anywere. STO has such potential in it.. but this 1 single thing.. while not as noticable in the first 1 or 2 tiers... will seriously come back to haunt the entire game and its players once people get into the tier 3 and 4 ships. When players start to realize that the cruiser they worked so hard for, that took them days, if not weeks of constant playing to get, the cruiser of their dreams with 8 forward and rear faceing weapons, can only ever fire 5 of those 16 weapons at one time.. ever.. its going to cause them to log out, uninstall and cancle their subscriptions.

I think that it was done this way for balance reasons. When you get to higher levels, you start getting some potent weapons and an ability to fire them all at once would offset any difficulty factor they put in.

Bye! Have fun in EVE and shooting all your weapons at once.

Oh and if you took a look you can actually use 2 Hvy Cannons at once.. no you cant fire them at once but the Share CD is 1/2 as long as thier normal CD down so after 20 seconds you are still firing about the same number of shots...

Aye I think you are right, I am sure I read it in a Beta Patch notes, the problem they had people could continuously fire them, thus destroying things pretty quickly. So the made all cannons share the same cool down to balance thing.

*rubs his eyes* its not just cannons though.. its not just torpedo's.. its EVERY weapon.. from cannons to even Turret weapons. if its the same 'named' weapon.. it shares a cooldown with any other on that same face of the ship (fore or aft)

I seem to remember quite a few Star Trek episodes where the captain says Fire all torpedoes or Fire all Phasers........It seem ridiculous that you cant.

If they need to make it so that the cooldown is longer or you have to divert power to fire all banks at once,

but the excuse that stronger ships get stronger if we let them use all their weapons...come on now.
That is the point.

Thats the same thing i believe.. i mean.. you'd think being able to fire all your currently equiped weapons would take a serious hit on your weapon power subsystem.. but yea.. THAT is the drawback to it.. fireing 8 weapons that take 5 or 10 power each pulse would likely take that 100/100 down to 50/100 in a few vollies.. but then again.. that'd be our choice wouldnt it?

As for the larger ships being to powerfull.. umm.. the OTHER guy is going to have a ship just as powerfull on his side as well... so, ok.. the tier 5 ship could instant-nuke a tier 2 escort... its the escorts own fault for goign 1 on 1 with the bigger ship in the first place. Being smart would be to let the two bigger ships get together first, then come in while their aleady engaged. Yea.. the bigger ship could turn on you and mealt your ship.. but unlike in EVE.. in STO.. you can NOT fire on 2 ships at once.. you can only target 1 ship, and can only attack 1 ship at a time.

So.. while yea, i might draw the fire from a larger ship than me durring pvp fights.. but while he's buisy swatting me away, he's nolonger shooting at the Cruiser i just helped a bit (which incidentaly is the whole point of a escort!)

I just want an honest answer.... what is the point of giveing the upper tier ships 5-6-7 weapon slots... if there only ever going to be able to use 3 or 4 of them at one time?

What?

Even my Miranda class ship can fire both the forward and aft weapons in parallel. Broad-siding ships is kinda fun when you are in your starter ship.

Cryptic could easily solve this issue with 'balancing' by incorporating their 'BURST' concept.

If you allow weapons to be GROUPED and fired as ONE in that group but increase the CD to 2x the duration.

Thus 2 Heavy cannons fire at once but instead of 2 seconds it takes 4 seconds for them to cycle. This would make for high shot attacks but lower the DPS to match.

Of course, this should only apply to similar types of Energy weapons. Thus you can only group 2 phasers, not 1 disrupter cannon + 1 Phaser array or multiple torpedo launchers. This solves the issue of Autofire as well, since a grouped weapon can be right clicked and fire the group automatically.

Incidentally, increased cycle time means people have more time to manage their other power between the cycles rather than pressing spacebar every 1 - 2 seconds between trying to distribute shields, manuver and activate powers.

Pyro, im not talking about fireing both aft and fore weapons at once. Take that phaser beam you have on the aft end of the ship and put it next to the Phaser beam you have on the nose.. then try to shoot something. You'll only ever be able to use 1 of those two Phaser beams at once.

Im not talking braudsides here, im talking about 1 side of the ship at a time, head to head, or tail to tail., the upper tier ships have up to and beyond 5 weapon slots on 1 face, but with the current codeing, you'd have to have all 5 'types' of weapons equiped to actualy USE all 5 of those slots at once.