Ion Cannons are they useless?

[Neon_42]

I'm talking about adding ion effect modules to weapons. I did an experiment where I added ion effects to my cannons. they did twice the damage to shields but no damage to hull. The numbers show that per block I get a better return on just cannons, unless I am missing something.

for 5 cannons I get 50 dps 5oo eps (energy per second), but 10 dpsb(damage per second per block) and 100 epsb (energy per second per block.

now lets add in the ion effect modules. for 5 cannons and 5 ion effect i get 100 dps and 1000 eps, but still 10 dpsb and 100 epsb.

I think this means that per block straight cannons are the way to go. As i can put 10 cannons on a ship for the same dps and they will take down shields just as effectively as ions and still damage the hull.

Mathematically a group of cannon and ion effects does the same damage to shields as a group of solely cannons of the same size e.g. 5 cannons and 5 ions vs. 10 cannons.

did I miss anything? Is this the same for the other effect modules?

 

[jayman38]

Ion is special in that it causes the weapon to damage shields more but hull less, which you have found.

A rather ingenious solution I have seen on a ship, the RAI Arbalest submitted for a Blood-and-Steel tourny recently is that a demo block was placed next to the ion computer, and a logic system. When the ship breaks through the enemy shields, the pilot can push a button to set off the demo block, destroying the ion subsystem, and then the weapon becomes a pure cannon system. I thought that was an amazing solution!

 

[Dr. Whammy]

Ion Weapons when used for their intended purpose are anything but useless.

Ion cannons are specifically designed to destroy shields. If you want a dual purpose weapon, try limiting the ion effect to between 75-90% The larger the gun, the larger the percentage of ion effect you'll want to use. That way, you can drop the opponent's shields then cut into their armor.

If you want a good, easy to aim, semi-alpha weapon, try a Beam, Beam, Ion system in a 1:1:0.8 ratio. The range is 1.5 sectors with a 15 second reload and it is very hard to miss.

I find that it's easy to build a ship that can punch well above its own weight in terms of damage to shields. For example, my Pathfinder class frigate is only 100 meters long but it can deal over 1,000,000 damage to shields in a single burst. And we haven't even made it to talking about its other weapons...

 

[Neon_42]

Ion Weapons when used for their intended purpose are anything but useless.

Ion cannons are specifically designed to destroy shields. If you want a dual purpose weapon, try limiting the ion effect to between 75-90% The larger the gun, the larger the percentage of ion effect you'll want to use. That way, you can drop the opponent's shields then cut into their armor.

If you want a good, easy to aim, semi-alpha weapon, try a Beam, Beam, Ion system in a 1:1:0.8 ratio. The range is 1.5 sectors with a 15 second reload and it is very hard to miss.

I find that it's easy to build a ship that can punch well above its own weight in terms of damage to shields. For example, my Pathfinder class frigate is only 100 meters long but it can deal over 1,000,000 damage to shields in a single burst. And we haven't even made it to talking about its other weapons...
View attachment 33406

Work the math. I dont misunderstand the purpose. What I'm saying is that mathematically. a group of 5 cannons and 5 ion does the same damage to shields as just 10 cannons without the effect and costs the same energy.

 

[Dr. Whammy]

My tests show otherwise. I just put a cannon computer with 2 cannon modules on it which hit shields for 20 damage. A cannon computer with a single cannon block linked to an ion computer with a single ion block did 40 damage to shields. I did this test after I read your response.

 

[Sen OTS Tier]

I did tests as well. 10 cannon modules did 100 to shields; 5 cannon and 5 ion did 200.

 

[Neon_42]

I did tests as well. 10 cannon modules did 100 to shields; 5 cannon and 5 ion did 200.

How much power?

 

[Sen OTS Tier]

1000 for each.

 

[Heillos]

Okay, here's the explanation.

10 blocks of cannon deals 100 DPS and takes 1000e/sec, since the per-block values for these are 10 and 100 respectively, and the reload is 1 second.

5 cannon + 5 ion works out to the same stats before effect calculations, since effect and secondary modules count towards the effective block count for that bit. Then we multiply this damage by the Ion Effect modifiers, and reach 200 DPS to shields and 0 DPS to blocks.

My best guess is that you weren't aware that the damage calculations effectively count secondary and effect modules (as long as their respective block-counts don't exceed the primary weapon's).

Long story short, Ion is exceedingly good at the one thing it does. Partial effects are pretty good if you don't want to specialize a weapon; jayman38's explosive solution is also quite ingenious. You might also be able to just unlink it during combat, via the weapon's menu; don't know for sure.

 

[JinM]

I assume ion effect is only usefull, if the enemy has a higher effective shield hp than effective armor hp. I could also see a tactical benefit in having the ion effect on turrets or drones who are positioned very close to the enemy, because they can be destroyed first.

But as soon as the enemy ship relies more on armor than on shieldings it is a big disadvantage. Well ofcourse you can unlink the modules, and then you don't miss the lost benefit once the shields are dropped. But still you loose 25% of efficiency just by deactivating these blocks (and I think this behaviour is not intendet as gamemechanic).

So basically vs stations ion effect is a joke, because most of them have 100k shields and 1mill armor and block hp.

I think the effects play a bigger role in big ship combat, when 2 weapon systems deal 20% more damage than one big system of the same kind. In this case having half the weapon blocks in an ion system does yield like 65% more damage, because you now can use 2 weapon systems instead of one. Ofcourse I am talking about weapon setups with 10 or more weapons, not just 3 or 4, on the hotbar. But please correct me if I am wrong with my math.

 

[Dr. Whammy]

I assume ion effect is only usefull, if the enemy has a higher effective shield hp than effective armor hp. I could also see a tactical benefit in having the ion effect on turrets or drones who are positioned very close to the enemy, because they can be destroyed first.

But as soon as the enemy ship relies more on armor than on shieldings it is a big disadvantage. Well ofcourse you can unlink the modules, and then you don't miss the lost benefit once the shields are dropped. But still you loose 25% of efficiency just by deactivating these blocks (and I think this behaviour is not intendet as gamemechanic).

Agreed. Although, there are some situations where a dedicated anti-shield setup is desirable and not having enough sustained damage output to keep their shields down can cost you a fight. After all, shields regenerate. Armor does not.

I So basically vs stations ion effect is a joke, because most of them have 100k shields and 1mill armor and block hp.

This station model has beefy shields (3 million, I think) AND armor as well as widely spaced systems; making it a real pain to take down in a smaller ship. This particular station is the reason why I started equipping nearly all of my ships with Ion beam weapons.

I think the effects play a bigger role in big ship combat, when 2 weapon systems deal 20% more damage than one big system of the same kind. In this case having half the weapon blocks in an ion system does yield like 65% more damage, because you now can use 2 weapon systems instead of one. Ofcourse I am talking about weapon setups with 10 or more weapons, not just 3 or 4, on the hotbar. But please correct me if I am wrong with my math.

I've actually used multiple weapons systems in this manner; mainly to cut down on power consumption for missiles and large beam arrays. Nowadays, I focus more on an efficient power setup and use one cannon/cannon/punch through system, a large beam/beam/ion system and a bunch of missiles divided into multiple fire groups.

Regarding big ships; with people flying ships with over 20 million shields and over a million regen per second, I tend to put very high emphasis on ion weapons. If I can get their shields down, the real fight begins.

 

[MrFURB]

Please be aware that the in-game view of a weapon's stats is bugged; it does not take into account any effects and in fact treats them as if they are not there at all. In order to properly test a weapon setup I recommend making a testing platform on a build universe/SP universe and viewing the damage numbers after firing on it.

 

[HerrColonel]

RAI Arbalest is the lord of ion cannons

 

[Az14el]

I think partial Ion cannons are among some of the strongest weapons in the game, but you need some solid block damage to back them up, like some missile turrets. Main advantage being a full Ion weapon as a primary weapon system will make itself redundant pretty damn quickly, while its a massive advantage to drop the enemy shields first in most cases, it just stops being useful immediately afterwards.

Leaving some block damage behind by using less than 100% Ion, combined with cannons innately superior block damage, you can make a primary Ion weapon that can still penetrate clean through same size or larger ships, making it both an anti shield & an efficient powerline/weapon grouping/computer killer. Follow that up with some automated weapons that can deal heavy block damage with a small count, like piercing missiles/cannons, and maybe an anti armor HP (punch) missile or beam if you have the space for some power capacity, and you can deal with a pretty large range of ships.

Can't get away with output spam quite as much with this though, since you need a baseline damage per hit with cannons to deal decent block damage in the first place (same can be said of any weapon, cannons have the lowest reqs to deal with armor & hit penetration soft caps, so perfect candidate to slap ion onto). The bigger you go/go after, the more that output # matters.

 

[Edymnion]

A rather ingenious solution I have seen on a ship, the RAI Arbalest submitted for a Blood-and-Steel tourny recently is that a demo block was placed next to the ion computer, and a logic system. When the ship breaks through the enemy shields, the pilot can push a button to set off the demo block, destroying the ion subsystem, and then the weapon becomes a pure cannon system. I thought that was an amazing solution!

That isn't actually ingenious, thats wasteful as hell...

Just put the computers out where you can reach them, like a control console right in front of the core. When you are done with using the ion, simply unlink the ion control computer from the cannon computer. Bam, its a pure cannon, and when you're done you just re-link the ion computer and you're good to go again.

 

[jayman38]

That isn't actually ingenious, thats wasteful as hell...

Just put the computers out where you can reach them, like a control console right in front of the core. When you are done with using the ion, simply unlink the ion control computer from the cannon computer. Bam, its a pure cannon, and when you're done you just re-link the ion computer and you're good to go again.

Won't that require a 30-second reboot, an eternity in terms of combat time?

 

[Nickizzy]

Won't that require a 30-second reboot, an eternity in terms of combat time?

No......? I've never heard of a reboot needed for every computer re/delink.

 

[Matt_Bradock]

nope, that only takes the time before battle to get you looking at the ion effect computer in buildmode while you have the main cannon computer selected. Swap to buildmode, hit V, TA-DAA it's disconnected and you didn't have to blow up your own ship. You did lose visual contact with your opponent for 2 seconds though.

 

[Nickizzy]

I find that it's easy to build a ship that can punch well above its own weight in terms of damage to shields. For example, my Pathfinder class frigate is only 100 meters long but it can deal over 1,000,000 damage to shields in a single burst. And we haven't even made it to talking about its other weapons...

Isn't that your semi-auto torpedo ship? Wouldn't it be kinda bad if you had such a system on a ship that already had so much space dedicated to antishield systems?

 

[Edymnion]

Won't that require a 30-second reboot, an eternity in terms of combat time?

No, because you're not taking the block out, you're just unlinking it.