• In the playthrough today (1.9 Beta 2), the Quantumsphere disintegrator could pass through planets and stargates. That's probably not intentional.
  • Make sure that appropriate beam weapons (e.g., Morana archcannon) can still hit the sphere. In general, almost any shot should be able to hit it (since it is so large).
  • Consider making the max speed of the quantumsphere slower. Slow enough that (e.g.) a Wolfen (and maybe a Freyr) can out-run it. Perhaps the sphere slows down when it has to change direction.
  • Consider reducing hit damage. If a player has disintegration-immune armor, the quantumsphere should not be nearly as deadly.
the_shrike 24 Nov 2020:

Point 1: It actually /was/ intentional. It was changed to prevent camping on the planet near the stargate. I don't think it's a good mechanic though.

Point 2: It used to only have a 1 pixel hitbox. Definitely worth tweaking to make sure.

Point 3: The range is so high that outrunning it isn't a good idea. Being able to out-turn it would work. The combination of good agility and acceleration is extremely dangerous on a missile.

Point 4: Yup yup yup. This gun is excellently balanced for Part II, but is extremely over-capable for endgame Part I playerships. Especially since one of the easiest armors to get for disintegration immunity is Light Iocrym armor....which is vulnerable to antimatter.

megas 24 Nov 2020:

Light Iocrym armor is barely good enough. Quantumsphere does too much damage to it. In one of my more recent games, I got around the quantumspheres by saturating the area with S3 Medusa missiles.

george moromisato 16 Dec 2020:

I've made the following changes in 1.9 Beta 3:

  • Fixed it so Quantumsphere does not pass through planets. This turned out to be caused by the friendly fire changes that made neutrals count as friends. [Note: the camping on planets prevention was made to pteravores.]
  • The interaction changes in 1.9 Beta 2 caused beams to never interact with Quantumspheres. I changed this so that Quantumspheres always interact. [Made the same change to pteravores and neuroplague.]
  • I slightly lowered the speed and maneuverability of Quantumsphere, which will allow fast ships to dodge better.
  • I slightly reduced the damage caused to allow disintegration-immune armor to have a small advantage.