Engineers Multi Cannon Overcharged - thermal handicap with Incendiary?

[Dr Zarkov]

This is for iCourier, gimballed multis 2F.

I need multis for module sniping, therefore no Rapid fire (jitter). I'm thinking about going for Grade 5 Overcharged, but without Incendiary perk. DPS on hull will be greater.

Have I got it right? Adding Incendiary makes them thermal, eg work better on shields, but for pure hull damage they're better off just as Overcharged?

Also, will adding Incendiary perk increase thermal load or something on already hot Overcharged?

Thank you!

 

[Herbrand]

This is for iCourier, gimballed multis 2F.

I need multis for module sniping, therefore no Rapid fire (jitter). I'm thinking about going for Grade 5 Overcharged, but without Incendiary perk. DPS on hull will be greater.

Have I got it right? Adding Incendiary makes them thermal, eg work better on shields, but for pure hull damage they're better off just as Overcharged?

Also, will adding Incendiary perk increase thermal load or something on already hot Overcharged?

Thank you!

Yes to both questions - Incendiary Multicannons deal mostly Thermal damage (how much % exactly is anyone's guess), AND they generate 3x the regular amount of heat on your ship.

 

[Derath]

Don't Incendiary multi-cannons do 50% thermal like kinetic bursts do 50% kinetic? That was always what I assumed not that I have anything to back it up just that the conversions would be like for like.

 

[ExoForce]

There was something from the devs somewhere after the patch... Have they changed Incendiary to be pure thermal?

 

[Dr Zarkov]

Encouraged by Herbrand's confirmation, I've just placed two rapid fire multis and one rapid fire pulse on an iCourier. All Grade 5, all with NO perks. Laser fpr shields, guns for module sniping.

And it rocks!!!

Before I had Grade 5 overcharged multis with Incendiary perk, three of them. The ship was going to 100% heat in a second. Now I can do 2-2-2 and fire continuously. Totally cool (both meanings).

 

[StiTch]

There was something from the devs somewhere after the patch... Have they changed Incendiary to be pure thermal?

No, just decreased the kinetic output as in PvP they were far too effective against both hull and shield, and conceptually had a higher total damage output than unmodded. They stripped out some kinetic damage and incendiaries now deal less damage overall.

OP is correct that adding incendiary will make them worse against hull considerably, but if you're module sniping this is actually slightly less of an issue. Ultimately I would be reminded that cannons just got new mods, so if you want shield stripping and module sniping, try at least one OC incendiary MC and OC cannon at the same time, which get dispersal field - a very nifty effect for the iCourier.

Cannons take getting used to but they're ideal on the iCourier and can do some real harsh PP slamming at close range.

 

[HazardousMatt]

Grrrrrr, I wish I would of seen this earlier. On my Python I got a Large MC Overcharged with Corrosive, Large MC Rapid Fire with Incendiary, Large MC Rapid Fire no special effect, 2 Medium MC Rapid Fire with Incendiary. Is this overkill with Incendiary?

 

[Spiridon]

Grrrrrr, I wish I would of seen this earlier. On my Python I got a Large MC Overcharged with Corrosive, Large MC Rapid Fire with Incendiary, Large MC Rapid Fire no special effect, 2 Medium MC Rapid Fire with Incendiary. Is this overkill with Incendiary?

This could be better. Since Corrosive takes a damage penalty, I never use it on a main class guns. Those larges of yours are your main hitting power, don't nerf them. Corrosive works fine on your SMALLEST gun.

Overkill? Damage wise, you have almost exactly the same damage you would have if they were rapid fires with no perk. Plus yours work on shields too. Minus? You have 4-5 times more heat and distributor drain.

 

[kdjac]

I think all of the perks are nerfed in 2.2. The incendiary used to obliterate ships now they dont. I removed the perks from all my MC5s on the corvette and the DPS has massively increased.

 

[Spiridon]

I think all of the perks are nerfed in 2.2. The incendiary used to obliterate ships now they dont. I removed the perks from all my MC5s on the corvette and the DPS has massively increased.

HEy, is there a way to remove a perk?!

 

[Devari]

This could be better. Since Corrosive takes a damage penalty, I never use it on a main class guns. Those larges of yours are your main hitting power, don't nerf them. Corrosive works fine on your SMALLEST gun.

How does corrosive take a damage penalty? It has your ammo capacity reduced but applies a 25% non-stacking damage buff when the corrosive effect is applied to the ship's hull. With choosing a mod for a single large weapon I always use corrosive on my class 4 multicannons on my Anaconda and FDL because the lower fire rate means that I will run out of ammunition in my other multicannons first anyways so the decreased ammo capacity doesn't really affect anything.

 

[Buliel]

How does corrosive take a damage penalty? It has your ammo capacity reduced but applies a 25% non-stacking damage buff when the corrosive effect is applied to the ship's hull. With choosing a mod for a single large weapon I always use corrosive on my class 4 multicannons on my Anaconda and FDL because the lower fire rate means that I will run out of ammunition in my other multicannons first anyways so the decreased ammo capacity doesn't really affect anything.

A good way to ensure you don't run out of ammo. But what I do here to fix this issue is have a high capacity multicannon mod and slap a corrosive shell mod on it.

 

[Devari]

A good way to ensure you don't run out of ammo. But what I do here to fix this issue is have a high capacity multicannon mod and slap a corrosive shell mod on it.

That's one possibility but then you can't use the overcharged mods and I usually don't run out of my corrosive MC ammo before my other multicannons even with the reduced ammunition capacity. One of the main reasons for this is that I usually use my incendiaries on shields and don't start firing my corrosive multis until shields are down as they aren't very effective against shields and the damage buff is only applied when you're hitting the hull. That means that I am only firing my corrosive multis for much less time than my incendiaries and even with the reduced ammunition capacity they don't run out of ammo first. With the class 4 corrosives there is also the issue that the fire rate is considerably lower which means they consume even less ammo but they also have no spin-up time which counteracts that somewhat if you're firing shorter bursts.

 

[Spacecat]

You can remove them for free at the time you get them in the adjust screen. Afterward, I dunno , but doubt it. I usually just take the regular upgrades, as I don't think the effects are usually worth the extra grind to get them.

 

[Devari]

It's also worth mentioning that if you're determined to make a certain build work you can sometimes find specific secondary results that can reduce the main disadvantages of certain mods. For example I initially put 4X medium overcharged incendiary multis on my FDL along with an overcharged corrosive mod on the class 4 multi. I found that my FDL overheated within about 5 seconds with this build however as the ship actually has a surprisingly poor base thermal efficiency and couldn't handle all the incendiaries. Even putting a decent Grade 2 low emissions power plant mod with around a 25% base thermal improvement didn't help enough. I tried switching to 2X incendiary and 2x corrosive but this wasn't really very effective at taking down the shields on larger ships. Essentially my preferred FDL build was crippled by heat issues and I didn't want to have to resort to spamming heatsinks as I used my utility slots for shield boosters/PD/chaff.

What I eventually noticed with the grade 5 overcharged mods is that you will sometimes get a reduced thermal load secondary effect which partially offsets the increased thermal load from the incendiary rounds. This can be as much as 25-30% base thermal load reduction which is quite substantial. The issue here that I wasn't expecting is that the incendiary mod doesn't actually add a flat +200% thermal load, it multiplies whatever the base thermal load of the weapon is by 3X. As a result a 25-30% reduction in the base thermal load from a good secondary means that after a 3X increase from incendiary mod the total thermal load increase is only around +100-120% or a little more than double the normal thermal load for a multicannon instead of triple. As I was putting incendiary multi mods on my other ships I would put aside any multis that had a good thermal load secondary and put those incendiaries on my FDL. Now I have a full set of 4X medium overcharged incendiaries on my FDL that give me the dps boost from grade 5 overcharged mods but only produce around 2X the heat of normal multis instead of 3X. With this loadout of specialized "cool" incendiaries I can fire full weapons on my FDL without overheating and my build works great for RES hunting. You will probably only find the improved thermal load secondary around 10% of the time when making mods but if you only need a few of these to make a specific build work it can definitely be worthwhile.