Is there a minimum level of acceptable DPS?

[hakkarin]

I made a starfighter that has roughly 500 dps counting only cannons and not missiles. But after trying it out I found that having only 500 dps made the ship almost useless at taking down other ships because the damage caused was so slight.

What do you consider to be the "minimum" levels of dps a ship needs in order to not be useless at combat?

 

[StormWing0]

I normally min 10 blocks per group but as for min DPS not sure since it changes wildly depending on what you are facing.

 

[Edymnion]

Well, that depends a lot on what kind of combat you mean. Minimum DPS to be effective against a single Isanth and minimum DPS to be effective against an alpha pirate station are vastly different, and it just gets worse against player ships.

Rule of thumb though, you need your guns to be as big as you have space/power for.

 

[Jaaskinal]

Basically, there's no hard limit. If you want to damage isanths, it'll take more. If you want to damage stations, it'll take more. If you want to hunt people on multiplayer, it'll take more.

 

[Keptick]

You just need more than two cannon blocks in a rapid fire config if you want to damage things other than missiles, reason being that the damage of each bullet is so low that it gets rounded down to 0 when it hits armor blocks.

 

[Lecic]

The minimum DPS you should have is enough to kill an enemy before it can kill you.

 

[EricBlank]

The easy answer is 'no.' The complex answer is not necessarily, but you will want to pack as much punch as your energy production can compensate for. If your weapons can't damage a block with 100% cannon effect, reduce the effect ratio until they can (so increase the master, rather than the slave.) Refire rate will probably be good enough anyway at 50%, and some damage less often is better than none. Upsize it if your power production can handle the extra drain.

Most important thing is going to be making sure your capacitor doesnt drain under sustained activity. A fighter isn't going to have much endurance, it's going to break down fast, but for all of the duration that it is online it needs to be able to keep its capacitor charged so it can continue fighting. Once the capacitor is drained it can't shoot, it can't move, it loses its shields and other active defenses.