Dr. Whammy
Executive Constructologist of the United Star Axis
To be honest, I've seen beam's pierce frequently fail to work as advertised; even on unarmored targets. Whether or not this is a bug or insufficient damage output is anyone's guess. The only time I've seen cannons fail to punch through is when there's insufficient damage output.But beams have inherent PIERCE, this effect allows them to pass through multiple blocks anyway. Beam's latent penetration and Cannon latent penetration is roughly similar.
A rather painful caveat; using beams in this manner will stall your power system; which disrupts shield recharging and kills jamming and all defensive effects you may be running. This is not a matter of cannon/pulse vs beams, so much as a debate of power useage tactics. Saying you can fire part of a beam burst instead of one cannon shot is like saying you can run a 4-cylinder engine on only 1-3 cylinders because it's more practical than a rocket engine. Sure; you can do it but is that really a wise thing to do?Not really.
You can fire a beam when you have less than the capacity required to fire the whole beam burst. Yes, you still need to "pay the power toll" but what I was saying is that the Beam will actively utilise the power recharged during its 1 second burst. Power recharge ticks about 20 times a second. Therefore you can theoretically power an alpha beam off recharge alone (But at that rate you may as well just use the recharge with beam/cannon)
And yet beam does the same. It still has penetration effect when you add on 50% ion to it. This point is rather invalid.
Not in any of my tests. Something's amiss here, unless they've fixed what's wrong with piercing effects. Then again, the beam's piercing effect does have to spread its damage across all the blocks it touches. In this case, cannon/pulse will cut through the armor and several system blocks while the beam distributes damage evenly across them possibly, without destroying any.
Everything has a purpose, as well as pros and cons. For example.And as above messge. Cannon/pulse isnt useless, its just not as EFFECTIVE as other weapons out there.
Take that cannon/pulse/punch you used and turn it into cannon/cannon/punch. Using superior speed and agility you should be able to drill out thrust and power as they only have 25HP per block.
Also I see decoratives on the external of that ship, emaning they have 10-50HP. focusing these spots will net large amounts of damage to a cannon cannon
- Missiles do a ton of block damage but lose half of their damage on impact and can be destroyed by cannon fire. They are less effective against heavy armor and shields.
- Beams hit instantly but are prone to buggy behavior and have limited range. They aren't the best against fast charging shields
- Cannons are the most balanced and allow for the most variety of tactics. Weakness; you must choose between power, range and firing rate.
As far as my C/P ship. No; It would not be able to cut into the ship's armor to hit the engines/power grid. Those decorations you mention are just that; decorations. They do not contribute greatly to system HP and they are not used to cover systems so C/C falls short there as well. The pierce of a beam might work if it doesn't glitch or lose all of it's damage by spreading across all the blocks it touches.