Your thoughts on Cannons?
- Thread starter Stealthie
- Start date
I've had all-cannon loadouts on just about every ship I've fought with, and they're hilariously fun.
All are Overcharged. That's a given. Most have High Yield Shell, with a few Thermal Cascade mixed in.
My observations:
An Asp X with 4xS + 2xM Cannons (with the above-mentioned mods): you can wield a lot of hurt on things, even the big ships. Being as it's very nimble (and you can put a C6 shield in it, plus HRPS), you can make a pretty badass little gunner.
Vulture 2xL cannon. Nuff said. You can wipe out most ships pretty effortlessly.
Python, FDL, Anaconda: all comically ridiculous.
Corvette: Makes the above three as comical as a funeral. Quite possibly, my favorite thing in the game.
Hitting some of the smaller/fighter-sized ships can be a bit frustrating (more so with the bigger ships, and using fixed, as a result, I use gimballed, so I don't break real things in real life), but it's strangely satisfying hitting an Adder with 5 cannon blasts (Python/FDL), and it explodes instantly (eagles are "lol").
With the High Yield Shell, point blank power plant hits are almost insta-death. Especially with the L/H cannons.
So, in my opinion, all-cannons are great fun.
Pros:
Wield a lot of pain on anything you shoot at, and shots to power plants are lethal.
You can keep one pip to weapons, and 4 on system, so if you have a beefy ship with heavy shields and boosters, you will barely get scratched in most cases
Cons:
Hitting the smaller/faster ships takes a little patience and practice. It's not impossible, but can be "break stuff" frustrating
Ammo supply. While you can do the ammo increase mods, you lose the damage increase of the overcharged. So engagements are nearly as sustained. If only they'd make/offer ammo modules you could buy to increase the store...
Using a Python in a Haz Res, if you stick to the bigger ships (Clippper/FAS/FDS/Anaconda, etc), you can probably get about 1M-1.5M in bounties before your ammo is gone. At least, that's what I've experienced personally.
All are Overcharged. That's a given. Most have High Yield Shell, with a few Thermal Cascade mixed in.
My observations:
An Asp X with 4xS + 2xM Cannons (with the above-mentioned mods): you can wield a lot of hurt on things, even the big ships. Being as it's very nimble (and you can put a C6 shield in it, plus HRPS), you can make a pretty badass little gunner.
Vulture 2xL cannon. Nuff said. You can wipe out most ships pretty effortlessly.
Python, FDL, Anaconda: all comically ridiculous.
Corvette: Makes the above three as comical as a funeral. Quite possibly, my favorite thing in the game.
Hitting some of the smaller/fighter-sized ships can be a bit frustrating (more so with the bigger ships, and using fixed, as a result, I use gimballed, so I don't break real things in real life), but it's strangely satisfying hitting an Adder with 5 cannon blasts (Python/FDL), and it explodes instantly (eagles are "lol").
With the High Yield Shell, point blank power plant hits are almost insta-death. Especially with the L/H cannons.
So, in my opinion, all-cannons are great fun.
Pros:
Wield a lot of pain on anything you shoot at, and shots to power plants are lethal.
You can keep one pip to weapons, and 4 on system, so if you have a beefy ship with heavy shields and boosters, you will barely get scratched in most cases
Cons:
Hitting the smaller/faster ships takes a little patience and practice. It's not impossible, but can be "break stuff" frustrating
Ammo supply. While you can do the ammo increase mods, you lose the damage increase of the overcharged. So engagements are nearly as sustained. If only they'd make/offer ammo modules you could buy to increase the store...
Using a Python in a Haz Res, if you stick to the bigger ships (Clippper/FAS/FDS/Anaconda, etc), you can probably get about 1M-1.5M in bounties before your ammo is gone. At least, that's what I've experienced personally.
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Uh... the correct term is "had". I used to use cannons when hunting big ships before 2.2.03. The changes of that patch made me switch to efficient PAs instead, as they perform better on the role by now. If the 2.3 patch goes life, the best thing you can still do with a cannon is to equip weapon colors to create colorful explosion puffs on the target. They are pretty, really. Unfortunately that's all they actually are.
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Cannons used to really aim high and worked perfectly well, but despite getting small upgrades in the 2.2.03 patch they drastically fell behind and are not adviseable any more.
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if anything, C1 and C3 cannons could use some graphic upgrade love.
I mean, Medium and Huge are gorgeous weapons to look at, but C1 and C3 are really bad looking with those short barrels they look like mortars rather than cannons.
I mean, Medium and Huge are gorgeous weapons to look at, but C1 and C3 are really bad looking with those short barrels they look like mortars rather than cannons.
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Uh... the correct term is "had". I used to use cannons when hunting big ships before 2.2.03. The changes of that patch made me switch to efficient PAs instead, as they perform better on the role by now. If the 2.3 patch goes life, the best thing you can still do with a cannon is to equip weapon colors to create colorful explosion puffs on the target. They are pretty, really. Unfortunately that's all they actually are.
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Cannons used to really aim high and worked perfectly well, but despite getting small upgrades in the 2.2.03 patch they drastically fell behind and are not adviseable any more.
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"Not advisable"? Heh.
Please. I hope you aware that 99% of the players and not PVP junkies and cannons will work completely fine on their ships.
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Ooooooh think about 'em every day.
Turreted Cannons + Multicrew = Very Bad News For Aggressor.
When not in MC, they use ammo too fast, unfortunately. Prefer multi's
Cheers Cmdr's
Turreted Cannons + Multicrew = Very Bad News For Aggressor.
When not in MC, they use ammo too fast, unfortunately. Prefer multi's
Cheers Cmdr's
X-Terminator
Banned
I would never trust projectiles to be automated. They are much better when much closer. They are best in the hands of being manually controlled. If you do get Turreted Canons then have the sense to trust them in the hands of your GUNNER if you are in a build for Multi-Crew. However, I'd much more prefer the GUNNER to have a Turreted Beam with Long Range Mod so he is your best defence to get the targets Shields down at least. Then you can have more fun with Gimballed Canons yourself and get in close for them. There is a much higher chance of accidental shootings otherwise.
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I am not a PvP player, and i actually enjoy RES tours in a small ship. That being said, i still like my ship to be efficient, and cannons at the moment are an inferior choice. The only thing which i did not cover in my statement is: if you put them on a large or huge hardpoints, cannons actually still are very good in killing big ships. Just like any other large or huge weapon. I left this out as my posting refered to the "punching above their weight class" for cannons, which large or huge weapons can't do any more.
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I am not claiming that cannons are not useable, but there currently is no role for them, which another weapon could not do just as well or even better. Disclaimer: This is all with engineers in mind. Would we be speaking of exclusively non-engineered weapons, i would still see a role for cannons, but not only are Engineers the games status quo and won't go away any more, but engineering weapons is also part of the discussion of this thread. So when taking Engineers into account, there's nothing where the Cannon outshines other weapons. At the same time, other weapons can do the same job but are still better for different aspects.
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E.g. a PA has adequate penetration value and hull damage, so it can match the cannon for hull and module destruction. At the same time it has much better shield killing capabilities than the cannon. Sure the base version suffers from capacitor drain and heat buildup, but this can be helped a lot with an efficient modification.
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And that's why i say, cannons are not adviceable at the moment. There's simply better alternatives available, so telling people to use cannons is bad advice. (Unless we're now suddenly speaking of a beginner in a non-engineered ship, which if i don't mention it yet here, will certainly suddenly come up in a followup posting. )
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My python is fitted with turreted cannons on the med points, and at first they were always a bit meh.
Then someone pointed to the cannon engineer and said go pay him a visit.
Now I call my cannons Cillit and Bang.... because BOOM and the power plant is gone
lvl 5 Rapid fire with high yield shell, get the angle to hit the power plant (or any other module) and you'll cause serious damage in one firing... and near terminal in a second
And a small ship? once the shields are down.... SPLAT!... even if they survive nearly every interior module will have taken 50% damage.
Only downside is the ammo capacity... but nothing a few materials wont take care of. and the 30% bonus damage has to be seen to be believed
Bill
Then someone pointed to the cannon engineer and said go pay him a visit.
Now I call my cannons Cillit and Bang.... because BOOM and the power plant is gone
lvl 5 Rapid fire with high yield shell, get the angle to hit the power plant (or any other module) and you'll cause serious damage in one firing... and near terminal in a second
And a small ship? once the shields are down.... SPLAT!... even if they survive nearly every interior module will have taken 50% damage.
Only downside is the ammo capacity... but nothing a few materials wont take care of. and the 30% bonus damage has to be seen to be believed
Bill
I am not arguing that PAs aren't better. However I wouldn't describe all guns that do less damage (which, if compared to PAs, is most of them) as "Not advisable"
Yes, cannons suck against shields. Fair enough. But they are still better at sniping modules than PAs. And I will still go for kinetic loadout on my overclocked Courier, simply because of the power and heat reasons.
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PLEASE can I have THIS cannon;
This is the HARP (High Altitude Research Project) gun, and this one spat a Martlet 2 projectile 110 miles up! That is a record that stands today. I think I could mount one onto an Anaconda, but I doubt it could be retracted.
This is its' SMALLER brother, used in Barbados;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_HARP
This is the HARP (High Altitude Research Project) gun, and this one spat a Martlet 2 projectile 110 miles up! That is a record that stands today. I think I could mount one onto an Anaconda, but I doubt it could be retracted.
This is its' SMALLER brother, used in Barbados;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_HARP
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I first fitted cannons to a ship "by accident", while trying to upgrade my Cobra at a station that didn't have any multi-cannons in stock.
Can't say I was that impressed.
Recently I've been experimenting with defensive weapons for larger ships and, in particular, I've been playing with turreted weapons.
I know it's a bit "lazy" but I like the idea of having weapons where I can "just let them get on with it" while I worry about stuff like energy-management and high-waking etc.
So, that brings me back to cannons and, I gotta say, I'm quite impressed by turreted cannons.
On a ship that has plenty of hardpoints, I'll fit a couple of turreted beam-lasers for knocking down shields and then just fit as many turreted cannons as possible.
Just the sound of having 8 cannons all plonking away relentlessly at some attacker makes me smile.
It's all very "WW2 battleships in space".
Personally, not really a fan. Don't hit hard enough for their low rate of fire, and projectile speed is too slow for you to really have a chance to get shots on target. I prefer multi's and rails for damaging hull
I have 2 questions regarding "defensive" mods on cannons :
1- are dispersal field shells efficient in PVE when you fly a nimble ship ?
2- are the force shell effect is damage dépendent ? in other words , does a C1 cannon with force shell will make the ennemy drift as efficiently than a C4 ?
thanks a lot
1- are dispersal field shells efficient in PVE when you fly a nimble ship ?
2- are the force shell effect is damage dépendent ? in other words , does a C1 cannon with force shell will make the ennemy drift as efficiently than a C4 ?
thanks a lot
A weaker version of the MC ?
(which not an unfaire assessment once the engineer mods are accounted for)
(which not an unfaire assessment once the engineer mods are accounted for)
Philip Coutts
Volunteer Moderator
I love cannons, get in close and boom!
Well dang...I shall be trying this out on my spanking new cargo hauling cutter!
Seems like NPCs are high waking more than usual too these day, so these cannons might be just the thing to deal with that
Thinking about refitting the Clipper with long range class 3 pulse, burst or beam and class 2 cannons incendiary and corrosive. What would be your thoughts on this?
