Engineers Plasma Accelerator Experimental Upgrades - Which are useful?

I'm looking at Inara's list of possible experimental upgrades for what I plan to do with a couple of plasma accelerators that I'm looking at adding to a ship (they're to replace a pair of medium dumb-fire missile racks). I'm aware that the usefulness of the experimental upgrades can vary wildly and some are bugged or make the weapon worse.

(If it changes anything, the ship that's getting the PAs is a PvE FdL used for bounty hunting and combat zones, mostly compromised nav beacons at the moment.)

Here's the list of possible PA mods, according to Inara:

Dazzle Shell
Experimental shells that temporarily reduce a targets sensor acuity upon impact.

Dispersal Field
Experimental upgrade that causes successful strikes to temporarily confuse all gimbal and turret hardpoints on the target, at the cost of direct damage potential.

Phasing Sequence
Bleed through Modulating burst fire system designed to defeat shielding. A small amount of damage is able to „bleed“ through shields and attack the targets hull directly, at the cost of minor damage reduction.

Target Lock Breaker
Experimental upgrade that breaks target lock on successful strikes.

Thermal Conduit
Experimental upgrade that increases damage output based on heat level of the firing ship.
 
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Dispersial field and maybe target lock breaker against missiles. Others are useless and reduce your damage sich as phasing or thermal conduit. When your ship is cool thermal conduit reduces the damage according to another player who is active in PvP.

But yea it is only dispersial field or eventually target lock breaker. Others are useless or have no effect at all or are actually a downgrade.
 
I have Dispersal on my lone G5 C4 PA. I have no complaints. I don't know anyone running PAs anymore so threads like these tend to be barren. I might roll a second overcharged conduit for my Corvette. In case they buff PA's and Cannons like they talked about in the Beta forum. Disappointed those buffs didn't materialize.
 
I use Target Lock Breaker on my APAs and its quit amusing to say the least. Also dont overlook the potential of Phasing Sequence on a Huge PA. I have a friend who has it on his FdL, which he uses for PvE and PvP and it can do 4-6% damage per shot against targets with a low armour value.
 
I use Target Lock Breaker on my APAs and its quit amusing to say the least. Also dont overlook the potential of Phasing Sequence on a Huge PA. I have a friend who has it on his FdL, which he uses for PvE and PvP and it can do 4-6% damage per shot against targets with a low armour value.

Can you describe what makes it amusing? Just the annoyance of having to retarget the ship? In what scenarios is this more beneficial than Dispersal? Phasing seems cool for PvP if he can take 5% hull chunks off of other engineered ships.
 
I've tested unmodded PAs a bit, and the main feature seems to be cooking my ship every time I fire the things. I'm using 1 huge and 1 medium incendiary MC and DD5, so there's a lot of heat going around already (a low-emission plant isn't enough).

Looks like I'm behind the fashion all of a sudden though, now that Pulse Lasers seem to be the thing to be using.
 
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Can you describe what makes it amusing? Just the annoyance of having to retarget the ship? In what scenarios is this more beneficial than Dispersal? Phasing seems cool for PvP if he can take 5% hull chunks off of other engineered ships.

For PvP. Folks with gimballed have a hard time targeting you. Missiles won't lock onto you. Even against fixed it removes their lead reticule. 1 APA with G5 rapid fire can continual target lock break until a reload. With 2 firing in alternate sequence it's hilarious.

I used to us lock breaker against folks with heat packhounds in 2.1 and it would completely prevent them from firing at me. Until reload ofc.
 
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For PvP. Folks with gimballed have a hard time targeting you. Missiles won't lock onto you. Even against fixed it removes their lead reticule. 1 APA with G5 rapid fire can continual target lock break until a reload. With 2 firing in alternate sequence it's hilarious.

I used to us lock breaker against folks with heat packhounds in 2.1 and it would completely prevent them from firing at me. Until reload ofc.

thank you for the insight. I ended up going with Phasing, but I will probably roll a couple more C4 PA's. Probably 2 conduit (in preparation for everyone having some heat and how it functions now). But when I get to my C3 PA's, I'll be going with one Target Lock based on your experience and testimony.

Here's hoping for some future PA damage buffs applying retroactively to my existing PA's. lol.
 
For PvP. Folks with gimballed have a hard time targeting you. Missiles won't lock onto you. Even against fixed it removes their lead reticule. 1 APA with G5 rapid fire can continual target lock break until a reload. With 2 firing in alternate sequence it's hilarious.

Repped because I love this sort of thing.
 
For PvP. Folks with gimballed have a hard time targeting you. Missiles won't lock onto you. Even against fixed it removes their lead reticule. 1 APA with G5 rapid fire can continual target lock break until a reload. With 2 firing in alternate sequence it's hilarious.

I used to us lock breaker against folks with heat packhounds in 2.1 and it would completely prevent them from firing at me. Until reload ofc.
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Does it do anything for PvE? Or is dispersal field better? I haven't invested into upgrading the PA of my Python cargo transport yet, but it's on the todo list and this info could change what i go for.
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Does it do anything for PvE? Or is dispersal field better? I haven't invested into upgrading the PA of my Python cargo transport yet, but it's on the todo list and this info could change what i go for.
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I have not noticed it doing anything to hinder NPC targeting.....
 
I've tested unmodded PAs a bit, and the main feature seems to be cooking my ship every time I fire the things. I'm using 1 huge and 1 medium incendiary MC and DD5, so there's a lot of heat going around already (a low-emission plant isn't enough).

Looks like I'm behind the fashion all of a sudden though, now that Pulse Lasers seem to be the thing to be using.

Try efficient weapon L4/L5 - I have 4 class 2 and 1 class 4 PAs on my FDL - never get above 60% heat :)
 
Dazzle shells

Well i can say about DAZZLE SHELLS are that they are on the wrong weapon in this case.

While DS(dazzle shells) are great for ships with low heat output (cool runners ,Sillent runners) they are uselles for normal ships.

While getting hit by a dazzle shell... a ship that is fighting a SR build WILL LOSE ALL TRACK (not even resolve) for a few seconds.

but how do you pair this kind of advantage with one of the biggest heat builders in game... go figures!

Dispersal Field

Another kind of special effect in the wrong gun...

You give a gimmick and reduce firepower of a Plasma?

Not really tested this one... but if the effect is LONGER than the Cannon... (maybe double!)then it might be a interesting defense weapons...

Phasing Sequence

Tested this one... and it sucks plain and BAD, skip it...

Target Lock Breaker

Not really much use if you could at least stay out of the radar for a while.. then it would be good for something but just unlocking youself is stupid :D


Thermal Conduit

Thats one beserk weapon... maybe a build only for it might be crazy good. so this is what it does:

-It takes you 15% of your damage
-At 80% it does the same damage as unmoded.
-At 100% id does 100% more damage ((100%-15%)+100%)

Not healthy if you're carring anything on your hold BTW
This one i heard from a guy not tested really!



For me? if youre going to buil a ship around a plasma, use Conduit, maybe a whole bunch of this guys means that you are actualy firing twice guns wich is sick... but remember you cant stay much time at cooking or else it will back fire...

If you are just going to make a ship for your liking and it has a plasma on it ... keep it normal, no effects...
 
Thermal Conduit

Thats one beserk weapon... maybe a build only for it might be crazy good. so this is what it does:

-It takes you 15% of your damage
-At 80% it does the same damage as unmoded.
-At 100% id does 100% more damage ((100%-15%)+100%)

Not healthy if you're carring anything on your hold BTW
This one i heard from a guy not tested really!

Likewise, I have heard similar (about beams) but not tested thermal conduit.

Yet once again we have the RNGineering conundrum: something that looks interesting until you consider the alternatives.

I mean, I'm all in favour of a guy making his own unique build but if I'm interested in being remotely competitive, why should I cook myself to use a DPE-dreadful weapon like plasma or beams doing 185% damage, when I could be using a DPE-awesome (if boring) weapon like pulses or multis doing 170% damage?
 
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