... or why I think that we need engineerable and gimballed guardian weapons.
As most people probably know thargoids are mostly immune to human non-AX weaponry, as in zero (or at least by far not enough) damage is caused to hull and thargoid hearts. The guardian weaponry however, the shard cannon, plasma and gauss cannon can tear apart thargoids very eficiently. They are, however, vastly inferior to human guns in terms of human-ship-damage, especially when compared to engineered human tech weapons.
The consequence of this is that both combat modes are completely split. You will only be 20% as effective vs. human ships with guardian weapons, making them a bad choice in any activity outside of thargoid battles.
On a side note the guardian plasma accelerator seems to be the only weapon that doesn't underperform vs. human ships compared to an un-engineered PA.
It would be really great if the combat gameplay would not be so split. It's Ok for human weapons to be ineffective versus thargoids, but we get new hybrid-toys from a technologically superior race and it can't compete with our standard weaponry. If a guardian gauss does rip one hell of a hole into thargoid armor which is resistant to our kinetic weapons, why doesn't it also show a heavier effect on human ships? If the shard cannon fires state-of-the-art ultra-hardened crystal shards that basically cut through a tharg, why doesn't it do the same to human ships?
It's disappointing to see that alien technology not being of much use for 95% of the combat gameplay going on in Elite. Thus I think they would greatly benefit from engineering. This does not mean giving them the same possible upgrades as the human tech, but having us kill thargoids with them and needing those mats to upgrade alien weaponry would still require players to engage the content that guardian weapons are made for and create the motivation to actually go out and kill goids to get better stuff.
And while I understand that there shouldn't be gimballed gauss or PAs, I don't get why the shard cannon isn't availible as gimbal when normal fraggos are. This would actually give it some sense to be equipped because gauss still outperforms it vs. hearts. But a gimbal shard cannon would have given heavy ships a greater flexibility versus those speedy xenos and made it more useful as the only no-falloff frag cannon vs. humans.
Don't get me wrong, I absolutely acknowledge that thargoids need different tactics and more advanced equipment. I just feel like said advanced equipment should have more use in the normal gameplay, after all it's one hell of a grind to acquire it and alien weapons are just quite fancy.
Thanks for reading.
As most people probably know thargoids are mostly immune to human non-AX weaponry, as in zero (or at least by far not enough) damage is caused to hull and thargoid hearts. The guardian weaponry however, the shard cannon, plasma and gauss cannon can tear apart thargoids very eficiently. They are, however, vastly inferior to human guns in terms of human-ship-damage, especially when compared to engineered human tech weapons.
The consequence of this is that both combat modes are completely split. You will only be 20% as effective vs. human ships with guardian weapons, making them a bad choice in any activity outside of thargoid battles.
On a side note the guardian plasma accelerator seems to be the only weapon that doesn't underperform vs. human ships compared to an un-engineered PA.
It would be really great if the combat gameplay would not be so split. It's Ok for human weapons to be ineffective versus thargoids, but we get new hybrid-toys from a technologically superior race and it can't compete with our standard weaponry. If a guardian gauss does rip one hell of a hole into thargoid armor which is resistant to our kinetic weapons, why doesn't it also show a heavier effect on human ships? If the shard cannon fires state-of-the-art ultra-hardened crystal shards that basically cut through a tharg, why doesn't it do the same to human ships?
It's disappointing to see that alien technology not being of much use for 95% of the combat gameplay going on in Elite. Thus I think they would greatly benefit from engineering. This does not mean giving them the same possible upgrades as the human tech, but having us kill thargoids with them and needing those mats to upgrade alien weaponry would still require players to engage the content that guardian weapons are made for and create the motivation to actually go out and kill goids to get better stuff.
And while I understand that there shouldn't be gimballed gauss or PAs, I don't get why the shard cannon isn't availible as gimbal when normal fraggos are. This would actually give it some sense to be equipped because gauss still outperforms it vs. hearts. But a gimbal shard cannon would have given heavy ships a greater flexibility versus those speedy xenos and made it more useful as the only no-falloff frag cannon vs. humans.
Don't get me wrong, I absolutely acknowledge that thargoids need different tactics and more advanced equipment. I just feel like said advanced equipment should have more use in the normal gameplay, after all it's one hell of a grind to acquire it and alien weapons are just quite fancy.
Thanks for reading.
