Ship Builds & Load Outs Secondary Weapon Preference: Multi-Cannons or Pulse Lasers?

[mossfoot]

So I'm still searching for my "sweet spot" of combat leaning multi-role Clipper, and the sticking point always ends up being the C2 mounts.

I figure a C3 fixed beam will melt shields quickly enough, and a C3 fixed Plasma Accelerator will do great hull damage against larger ships (or unlucky smaller ones caught in a moment of inertia), but I'm wondering what would be better for the C2s running backup.

Thought one: 2 Gimbled Pulse Lasers.

http://coriolis.io/outfit/imperial_...18aQ==.IwBhrSujSA==?bn=Mossfoot's Clipper Alt

The logic being these will provide additional shield melting firepower without too much energy drain, and make up for missed shots in the C3 Fixed Beam. Downside is, once the shields go down they do less hull damage than say...


Thought two: 2 Gimbled Multi-Cannons.

http://coriolis.io/outfit/imperial_...18aQ==.IwBhrSujSA==?bn=Mossfoot's Clipper Alt

The logic being that once the shields are down they will be better at pounding hull and subsystems, but won't help as much while the shields are still up.


Both setups use close to the same energy. I'm not maxing out potential energy use because I want to have some energy free for possible shield boosters or prismatic shields later. In either case I figure I'll need two weapon configurations to switch between - one where the primary fire uses one of the two fixed weapons, the secondary fire being the C2s.

The question is, which do you think is overall more useful in a furball?

 

[Alex Brentnall]

Kinda depends on your intended use...

For NPC hunting I always used to run twin beams on the C3 hardpoints and twin cannons on the C2 hardpoints.
Only use cannons against big ship powerplants and use beams to deal with all smaller ships to save ammo. Don't remember having too many capacitor problems except for heavy shields like Pythons and Anacondas.

Then again If you are engaging lots of smaller ships I'd go multicannons.
Finally if you want to sit in a RES forever then yeah, pulse lasers for subsystem targeting.

Essentially they are all viable since they all target sub-systems pretty well. For pvp I have no idea, never tried in the Clipper. I think if you are set on that plasma accelerator I'd go with low heat and low capacitor use and take the cannons or multis..

 

[mossfoot]

Kinda depends on your intended use...

For NPC hunting I always used to run twin beams on the C3 hardpoints and twin cannons on the C2 hardpoints.
Only use cannons against big ship powerplants and use beams to deal with all smaller ships to save ammo. Don't remember having too many capacitor problems except for heavy shields like Pythons and Anacondas.

Then again If you are engaging lots of smaller ships I'd go multicannons.
Finally if you want to sit in a RES forever then yeah, pulse lasers for subsystem targeting.

Essentially they are all viable since they all target sub-systems pretty well. For pvp I have no idea, never tried in the Clipper. I think if you are set on that plasma accelerator I'd go with low heat and low capacitor use and take the cannons or multis..

Well I was impressed the the PA's damage, it's pretty much a supercharged cannon in terms of damage output and how it fires.

It's funny, but after all this I might just end up going back to twin C3 beams (fixed and Gimbled) and twin C2 MCs.... which is how I started out when I first got the Clipper

 

[Ceekay]

Try some medium turrets energy or kinetic, although the DPS is lower I've found they will be hitting the target a lot more than a gimballed or fixed weapon, depending on the ship the firing arc coverage can be surprising.
Additionally as they are autonomous in target only mode they allow you to take evasive maneuvers and still do some target damage until you can line up the primary weapons.