Need a little help understanding frag cannons

I've been looking at the stats for frags versus multis and I don't get it. The numbers seem a bit crazy. Wrt DPS the class 2 frags for example show 143.6 and class 2 multis (both gimballed) shows 12.6. Holy cow! Really? Why would you put any weapon other than frags on your ship? If they do that sort of damage it beats all the lasers and PA's and everything. Surely that can't be right? What am I missing about these numbers?
 
Frags have half the maximum range, slower projectile speed (more time for them to be dodged) and a slower rate of fire. They also need more power to run.
 
what you are missing

1. DPS does not calculate reload times into account; reload times of frags are quite big.

2. DPS does not calculate APV (armour penetration value) into account, frags have a comparable low one, making it the wrong weapon to hit above their size.

3. DPS does not calculate into account, how often or - in case of frags - how much of your shot hit the target. on my 3 frag courier i for exampel need longer to kill small hitbox ships like an eagle than AspEs.

4. DPS doesn't take ammo into account, the total available damage from a fully loaded MC is higher than that of a frag. with an all frag loadout, you need to rearm often.

5. DPS does not take into account, how one weapon is fitting to others ... my experience with frags is, that they work best in all frag loadouts, or at least all-close-range loadouts... while a MC is petty much a nice overall duty weapon.

that said, frags are awesome, and need different piloting! my all frag speed courier is the most fun combat ship i own, and of all of my small ships the loadout which takes down enemies the fastest, making it great for USS bountyhunting.
 
You need to be wayyy closer for it to be effective.

And against good players it's hard to hit frags unless you're basically ontop of them.

It's a much harder to use weapon, but higher payoff if you use it well then multi's.
 
If you go on Coriolis the number in brackets after DPS shows it adjusted to take account of reload time.

There's quite a difference...
 
Mmm - all very interesting to be sure. I've been playing around with the DBX and I gotta say I love this boat! EngineeredFSD and DDrives - just great. Got a class 3 burst and 2 x class 2 frags and I'm wondering if I should change to multis. Do you think this is a good ship to use them on? Just thinking out loud - perhaps the smaller faster ships like the iCourier or perhaps viper would be best for them rather than the DBX.
 
Mmm - all very interesting to be sure. I've been playing around with the DBX and I gotta say I love this boat! EngineeredFSD and DDrives - just great. Got a class 3 burst and 2 x class 2 frags and I'm wondering if I should change to multis. Do you think this is a good ship to use them on? Just thinking out loud - perhaps the smaller faster ships like the iCourier or perhaps viper would be best for them rather than the DBX.

as somebody who loves flying the DBE, and as somebody who loves frags, i have to say ... it is the wrong ship for them. it isn't fast boosting, so you can't really control engagement range. it is also not very manouverable, so it isn't good at bringing all hardpoints on a target at the same time and at the right distance.

generally I'd suggest using a large MC (or cannon ... or PA) and two medium lasers, and i even use one of those lasers as a turret.

frags i enjoy on my courier, on a DBS sometimes, on a vulture ... others on a FDL or FAS.
 
It's a similar difference between a shotgun and an automatic rifle in an FPS.

One excels at short range engagements, but is slower and trash at medium and longer ranges, while one is a decent all-rounder.
 
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Thanks for the advice Goemon - really useful. I can understand the FDL but I would have thought the fas would be too slow at manoeuvring to be suitable for frags as it is quite a heavy beast so that is a bit of a surprise. 2 class 2 pulses I assume? Can't imagine beams would be powered well by the DBE. Might try your suggestion - although the burst has been fun.
 
One interesting things about frags is that they are essentially semi-auto weapons. Meaning you can't simply hold the trigger - you have to press it again to fire another round.

As for huge reload times - try G5 rapid-fire mod with screening shell special effect. It can reduce reload times to less than a second, essentially turning frag into autoshotgun.
 
One interesting things about frags is that they are essentially semi-auto weapons. Meaning you can't simply hold the trigger - you have to press it again to fire another round.

As for huge reload times - try G5 rapid-fire mod with screening shell special effect. It can reduce reload times to less than a second, essentially turning frag into autoshotgun.

Whoa! Awesome!
 
One interesting things about frags is that they are essentially semi-auto weapons. Meaning you can't simply hold the trigger - you have to press it again to fire another round.

As for huge reload times - try G5 rapid-fire mod with screening shell special effect. It can reduce reload times to less than a second, essentially turning frag into autoshotgun.

Yeah, they are pretty wild. Kinda silly how screening shell is the highest damage special vs. ships and mostly worthless against missiles.

Also, frag turrets fire by themselves, and this can give them pretty pretty respectable damage with rapid fire as it removes any delay from having to do so manually. Gimbals used to do this as well, but I think they changed it because the ROF combined with automatic action was making them too potent.
 
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Thanks for the advice Goemon - really useful. I can understand the FDL but I would have thought the fas would be too slow at manoeuvring to be suitable for frags as it is quite a heavy beast so that is a bit of a surprise. 2 class 2 pulses I assume? Can't imagine beams would be powered well by the DBE. Might try your suggestion - although the burst has been fun.

- the FAS is surprisingly manouverable

- the DBE has a class 4 distributor, and can run 2 beams just so. but as it massively wins from pips in ENG, i'll opt for 2 bursts, also as it isn't manouverable, modded focussed
 
I've been looking at the stats for frags versus multis and I don't get it. The numbers seem a bit crazy. Wrt DPS the class 2 frags for example show 143.6 and class 2 multis (both gimballed) shows 12.6. Holy cow! Really? Why would you put any weapon other than frags on your ship? If they do that sort of damage it beats all the lasers and PA's and everything. Surely that can't be right? What am I missing about these numbers?

Space shotgun.

Shotguns in most games will feature the highest theoretical maximum damage (besides snipers and headshots) on the basis that you have to be in their face to use them.

That doesn't mean that bringing a shotgun into every game you ever play is a good idea.
 
Thanks for the advice Goemon - really useful. I can understand the FDL but I would have thought the fas would be too slow at manoeuvring to be suitable for frags as it is quite a heavy beast so that is a bit of a surprise.

The FAS is more manoeuvrable than the FdL in many ways, although it loses out on lateral thrust and acceleration.

However, the real point is that there is no point fitting frags to anything unless you are unafraid of collision - indeed, welcome the prospect of collision.

The FdL with frags is an accident waiting to happen to you. The FAS with frags is, well, an accident waiting to happen to your enemy.

(Old FAS quad-frag PvP obliteration vid of mine follows, many will already have seen, with apologies)

[video=youtube_share;POKqYEYZmi8]https://youtu.be/POKqYEYZmi8[/video]
 
An all fragcannon build that is engineered can be very devastating when used right. Rinzler used such a load out against a corvette and it was very lethal.

[video=youtube;XkHoS98ciow]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkHoS98ciow[/video]
 
An all fragcannon build that is engineered can be very devastating when used right.

Both Rinzler's vid and my vid above it indeed show the wanton slaughter of big ships via engineered frags.

The only fly in the ointment is that it is rather more difficult to achieve anything with frags, in 1v1 PvP, against an opponent who knows what they're doing ... but there are always other opponents!
 
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