Beams or Cannons for block destruction?

[Kilim]

I am making a small warship that is supposed to fight at high speeds by getting out of bigger opponents firing arc. I am using cannons right now, but I'm contemplating whether or not to switch to beams, as beams hit where you aim, so it'll be easier for me to hit when traveling at high speeds, and since I'm going to be at close range, the beams short range will not be a big issue for me.

However I heard that beams are not that good for block destruction. What differs in the way block destruction is dealt by beams compared with cannons? Or are they the same?

Btw, if I would use beams it would be beam/cannon/pierce for block destruction.

 

[kiraen]

This thread will devolve into everyone arguing about the 'perfect' weapon, the tactics to hard counter each of them, and which ones should be nerfed because they are 'OP'. Every one has their own opinion. In other words, it's a pretty balanced system.

Bugs aside, it boils down to a personal preference. Since you've already considered the targeting and range factors I think you have made a good choice based on your intended usage. Check out the wiki on beams and cannons.

 

[Jchung]

 

[AtraUnam]

Beams have their pierce effect stopped by armor (Which is odd because that goes against what the devs initially said they wanted beams to do) and consiquently cannot break through more than 1 armor block per tick which can make breaking through the armor shell quite difficult. Cannons meanwhile penetrate armor effectively but may end up doing less damage to system blocks.

The general min/max concensus would seem to be this:

• Once a beam can destroy a block of adv/armor every tick there is no point in making it much bigger with the following exception. If the beam can be made so powerful that it can utilize explosive effect to destroy 5 blocks of adv armor every tick then it is worth it but once again beyond that point theres not much point to making it more powerful.
  Once armor is pierced beam/explosive is the best block destruction tool out there short of a missile drill.
• Cannons do not have the strict ideal damage constraints of beams and can 'punch' through armor blocks meaning they can start damaging small amounts of system before much armor is destroyed but even with explosive effect they are not as effective at system destruction.
• In both cases (but morso for beams) it can be a good idea to use partial ion effect to convert wasted block damage into extra shield damage e.g. if your weapon has twice as much damage as it needs to destroy the amount of blocks you want to destroy then give it 50% ion to lower the block damage and increase shield damage.

 

[Kilim]

This thread will devolve into everyone arguing about the 'perfect' weapon, the tactics to hard counter each of them, and which ones should be nerfed because they are 'OP'. Every one has their own opinion. In other words, it's a pretty balanced system.

Bugs aside, it boils down to a personal preference. Since you've already considered the targeting and range factors I think you have made a good choice based on your intended usage. Check out the wiki on beams and cannons.

Dude, I wasn't born yesterday, I know how to google. I clearly asked a question if there was a difference between cannons and beams not which is best.

Beams have their pierce effect stopped by armor (Which is odd because that goes against what the devs initially said they wanted beams to do) and consiquently cannot break through more than 1 armor block per tick which can make breaking through the armor shell quite difficult. Cannons meanwhile penetrate armor effectively but may end up doing less damage to system blocks.

The general min/max concensus would seem to be this:

• Once a beam can destroy a block of adv/armor every tick there is no point in making it much bigger with the following exception. If the beam can be made so powerful that it can utilize explosive effect to destroy 5 blocks of adv armor every tick then it is worth it but once again beyond that point theres not much point to making it more powerful.
  Once armor is pierced beam/explosive is the best block destruction tool out there short of a missile drill.
• Cannons do not have the strict ideal damage constraints of beams and can 'punch' through armor blocks meaning they can start damaging small amounts of system before much armor is destroyed but even with explosive effect they are not as effective at system destruction.
• In both cases (but morso for beams) it can be a good idea to use partial ion effect to convert wasted block damage into extra shield damage e.g. if your weapon has twice as much damage as it needs to destroy the amount of blocks you want to destroy then give it 50% ion to lower the block damage and increase shield damage.

Thanks! That was very helpful.

 

[KiloZulu]

I personally prefer beams, but their limited range can be a drawback. So, what I do is put cannons on my turrets, and use beams for hard points. I'm not going to be able to hit something whizzing around at long distance, so the AI gets to handle that stuff while I target anything that is close to hand.

 

[Lecic]

Beams are pretty much worthless against anything with multiple layers of armor. They're pretty much your only hope of hitting a fast ship with lots of PD, though, so they do have their uses.

I would rate beams above cannons when using non-block destruction effects (EMP, Ion, Momentum Effects) but cannons above beams otherwise.

Trying to build the best possible ship isn't possible. What you need to do, generally, is learn what systems and armor strength/thickness your opponents have, and balance your ships around that.

 

[Comr4de]

Beams are also good for zapping armor HP.

 

[TFlok]

I built a massive ship for myself a few weeks ago with damage beam+cannon+punch combos in a 9x9 cluster that is installed inside the ship and is as long as the ship itself (280m) and even then MUCH smaller missile combos do a better job of destroying blocks than the beam cannon in my retrofitted and glorified cargo hauler.

That's why my newest ship is a bit smaller and alot less long, has standard armor instead of advanced armor to be more nimble (I rely on shields anyway, if shields go even 60% I always panic even with loads of armor, it's just not fun for me to repair the damage and I end up spawning a new ship instead) and is essentially a missile battle barge once I install two nukes, 4-8 swarmer missile combos and I guess one sustained damage beam combo if I just need only a faction block destroyed. The ship already has 9 missile computers, 8 of them are each set to fire from the top with 1:1 scale beam+punch effect and the main gun is a cluster of 23 missile tubes all 1:1 scale with cannon+overdrive effect making it feel like one big torpedo. Also has a salvage+cannon (8 salvage modules clustered just like the main gun) array for mining as it has more than enough space for cargo and then some.

The only problem with my ship is that it looks plain and boring for everyone else but a golden treasure trove for me and this time I think I'm gonna pass with making side ridges.

 

[Keptick]

In addition to what AtraUnam said, you must also consider the range difference between cannons and beams. Beams have half the range of cannons, but are a hitscan weapon (instahit), making it much easier to aim with beams, especially if you're zipping around.

It's also worth noting that additional outputs cause the weapon to use 10% more power. So if you go over the point of one adv armor being destroyed per tick with beams then you either have the choice of adding more outputs (and making sure that they don't go over the previously mentioned threshold), or using cannons.

Cannons have the punch-through atribute (not the effect block), meaning that they keep on going as long as there's damage left. So you can have a higher damage per output without fear of wasting damage like beams. However, there is a certain percentage of damage lost with cannons iirc, but it's on a downwards sloping curve and requires pretty big weapons for it to become problematic. For a small ship there shouldn't be a problem.

If you're in the situation where cannons suffer from too much damage loss, or if you don't want to put up with the grouping power cost increase (especially with beams since going bigger means splitting up the damage in multiple outputs to avoid loss), or there's enough outputs to make the game really laggy when you fire, you have two options:

1. Assign a weapon computer for each output and fire them at the same time with logic. This effectively bypasses the grouping power nerf. However, weapons fored by logic only fore strwight ahead, so it can be a massive pain to aim. As such I wouldn't recommend it.
2. Use missiles. There's a bug with explosion damage fbeing overly mitigated by armor, but despite that missiles are still a MUCH superior block removal tool. Simply put, they don't suffer the size scaling problems of beams and cannons, and can be used effectively with small and large ships. They have their own weaknesses though, like the fact that they can be shot down, so plan accordingly.

So yea, that's my two cents on cannons & beams. You said that your warship was small, so weapon scaling probably won't be an issue for you.

 

[Kilim]

Wait so beams don't have any kind of punch through ability at all???
Or do they have it, but it gets blocked by armour?

 

[Lecic]

Wait so beams don't have any kind of punch through ability at all???
Or do they have it, but it gets blocked by armour?

They have an innate piercing ability. Due to how beam pierce and armor blocks interact, though, they can't break more than 1 (6 with explosive) armored block per tick (beams spread damage over 5 ticks).

 

[Kilim]

They have an innate piercing ability. Due to how beam pierce and armor blocks interact, though, they can't break more than 1 (6 with explosive) armored block per tick (beams spread damage over 5 ticks).

When you say pierce, do you mean like punchthrough?

 

[Lecic]

When you say pierce, do you mean like punchthrough?

Pierce and punchthrough transfer damage slightly differently. But yes, they're pretty similar. I honestly don't see the need for two separate effects that do almost exactly the same thing, but that's a conversation for a different thread.

 

[Keptick]

When you say pierce, do you mean like punchthrough?

Pierce applies a certain percentage of the damage to blocks in a line. So for example (fake numbers) it'd do 100%, 80%, 60%, 40%, 20% damage to 5 aligned blocks. The advantage of this is that it can damage and potentially destroy blocks without having to destroy the block in front, unlike punch-through. However, the fact that armor blocks it makes it somewhat useless since it was originally meant to desteoy system blocks behind armor without having to destroy the armor first. Since system blocks have the same HP you can't really destroy system blocks behind other systen blocks, so in effect the way it works on beams is more like a shitty punch-through that doesn't work against armor...

 

[Kilim]

Pierce applies a certain percentage of the damage to blocks in a line. So for example (fake numbers) it'd do 100%, 80%, 60%, 40%, 20% damage to 5 aligned blocks. The advantage of this is that it can damage and potentially destroy blocks without having to destroy the block in front, unlike punch-through. However, the fact that armor blocks it makes it somewhat useless since it was originally meant to desteoy system blocks behind armor without having to destroy the armor first. Since system blocks have the same HP you can't really destroy system blocks behind other systen blocks, so in effect the way it works on beams is more like a shitty punch-through that doesn't work against armor...

thx