- Joined
- Aug 15, 2018
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Hey welcome to the thread! Basically I created this because I can't find hardly any information on the effectiveness of different weapon systems after the update came out. Since then I have been trying and experimenting by myself to try and find some of the best systems for various types of combats. I'll share some of my findings here and please feel free to correct me or elaborate on any of these points. Basically just keep a friendly and open discussion about what works best. I know there is a post explaining a lot of this stuff but I need numbers so I can calculate what size the weapons need to be on my ships ahead of time.
Cannon Cannon: Mostly used for anti missile for turrets, although even this is limited since most missiles have a lot of health or go too fast. On ships this weapon is somewhat decent for attacking after the shields have already been taken down.
Cannon Missile: Can't be used on turrets, or at least I can't get it to work. Useful mostly when attacking slow moving ships and stations. Very powerful but because you have to hold the weapon down to charge it you cant switch to another weapon and charge a full blast simultaneously.
Cannon Beam: Great for knocking down shields in one shot although it seems to scale a little poorly. My fighter with only 100 modules can take down around 50k shields in a single shot meaning each module roughly takes down 500 shields. This doesn't seem to scale properly though as when firing a 1million version at a 330million shield it only did about 100mil damage to the shields. They can be used as Anti missile turrets but they are horribly inaccurate although they destroy the shot in a single hit usually. I still wouldn't recommend it in that role though, otherwise its an excellent weapon for bringing down shields that any size ship can utilize to take down shields on larger ships one class up.
Beam Cannon: Probably the number one system I use due to its ease of use and constant fire. Easily drains shields of ships about the same size as your own vessel assuming the same balance. These work especially well on slightly larger ships and above because the beams get stronger against armor blocks and start to burn through everything. Very effective all around weapon.
Beam Missile: Quite similar in use to the beam cannon just now it locks on and does more damage in exchange for slower speed. Great at taking shields down as well.
Beam Beam: Basically just the death star laser except your shields go down. Its not an extremely practical weapon. I see three scenarios where this weapon is useful. 1: Smaller ships in a fleet taking the shield down on a larger vessel while your larger vessel soaks in the fire. 2: An assault ship with almost no shield and an extremely heavy armor hull, essentially acting as a glass cannon. 3: My personal choice, cloaking the ship during the shield down sequence. Haven't checked to see if this works though as it may uncloak you even though you aren't firing the weapon.
Missile Cannon: A swarmer missile type. I find this to be an effective way for a very large ship to defend itself from tiny torpedo bombers. It can also be used to do a lot of block damage after the shields go down. Other than that just be careful not to fire it when you have friendlies around.
Missile Missile: The Nuke of the game. The fact it can go through shields makes this very useful in battle. Even tiny 15m bombers can be a nuisance to 800m titans. Very hard to hit small targets with but titans and stations are especially vulnerable. It does have a blast radius limit after a certain amount of modules so don't make a 100,000 module nuke with a single launcher. It makes the gun basically useless. I'd say about 5,000-10,000 for each launcher for maximum effectiveness. (This point really goes for all missile types) Great for cloaked ships too as they can hide and strike at just the right time to do some damage and then quickly slip away. Anti missile turrets can stop them but if you know what you are doing you can pretty much get a direct hit 50% of the time.
Missile Beam: This weapon is very useful for destroying the blocks after you take down their shields, although the missiles aren't bad at taking the shields down either. They are very powerful but have a long recharge rate. I like to use this weapon on a lot of my support frigates because it tends to be a weapon that can take down basically any threat within reason.
This is just some of the basic things I've found out, I'll post more as I learn more. ( I didn't even talk about single systems) Again feel free to correct me if I got anything wrong above, or offer some of your own research down below.
Cannon Cannon: Mostly used for anti missile for turrets, although even this is limited since most missiles have a lot of health or go too fast. On ships this weapon is somewhat decent for attacking after the shields have already been taken down.
Cannon Missile: Can't be used on turrets, or at least I can't get it to work. Useful mostly when attacking slow moving ships and stations. Very powerful but because you have to hold the weapon down to charge it you cant switch to another weapon and charge a full blast simultaneously.
Cannon Beam: Great for knocking down shields in one shot although it seems to scale a little poorly. My fighter with only 100 modules can take down around 50k shields in a single shot meaning each module roughly takes down 500 shields. This doesn't seem to scale properly though as when firing a 1million version at a 330million shield it only did about 100mil damage to the shields. They can be used as Anti missile turrets but they are horribly inaccurate although they destroy the shot in a single hit usually. I still wouldn't recommend it in that role though, otherwise its an excellent weapon for bringing down shields that any size ship can utilize to take down shields on larger ships one class up.
Beam Cannon: Probably the number one system I use due to its ease of use and constant fire. Easily drains shields of ships about the same size as your own vessel assuming the same balance. These work especially well on slightly larger ships and above because the beams get stronger against armor blocks and start to burn through everything. Very effective all around weapon.
Beam Missile: Quite similar in use to the beam cannon just now it locks on and does more damage in exchange for slower speed. Great at taking shields down as well.
Beam Beam: Basically just the death star laser except your shields go down. Its not an extremely practical weapon. I see three scenarios where this weapon is useful. 1: Smaller ships in a fleet taking the shield down on a larger vessel while your larger vessel soaks in the fire. 2: An assault ship with almost no shield and an extremely heavy armor hull, essentially acting as a glass cannon. 3: My personal choice, cloaking the ship during the shield down sequence. Haven't checked to see if this works though as it may uncloak you even though you aren't firing the weapon.
Missile Cannon: A swarmer missile type. I find this to be an effective way for a very large ship to defend itself from tiny torpedo bombers. It can also be used to do a lot of block damage after the shields go down. Other than that just be careful not to fire it when you have friendlies around.
Missile Missile: The Nuke of the game. The fact it can go through shields makes this very useful in battle. Even tiny 15m bombers can be a nuisance to 800m titans. Very hard to hit small targets with but titans and stations are especially vulnerable. It does have a blast radius limit after a certain amount of modules so don't make a 100,000 module nuke with a single launcher. It makes the gun basically useless. I'd say about 5,000-10,000 for each launcher for maximum effectiveness. (This point really goes for all missile types) Great for cloaked ships too as they can hide and strike at just the right time to do some damage and then quickly slip away. Anti missile turrets can stop them but if you know what you are doing you can pretty much get a direct hit 50% of the time.
Missile Beam: This weapon is very useful for destroying the blocks after you take down their shields, although the missiles aren't bad at taking the shields down either. They are very powerful but have a long recharge rate. I like to use this weapon on a lot of my support frigates because it tends to be a weapon that can take down basically any threat within reason.
This is just some of the basic things I've found out, I'll post more as I learn more. ( I didn't even talk about single systems) Again feel free to correct me if I got anything wrong above, or offer some of your own research down below.
