Ships Lasers - which, how and why?

[F4fred]

Simple questions. If you are a fan of lasers in ED and use them on some of your builds, which do you choose, pulse, burst or beam? How do you engineer them, blueprint and experimentals? Finally why do you like that combo?
My answers - beams, generally efficient, thermal vent, sustained DPS and keeps the ship nice and cool, sometimes so cool that other ships lose lock. I am open to be persuaded that there is something better worth considering.

 

[Rick6549]

All beams is the only acceptable build

 

[Factabulous]

As long as they're pink it's all good

 

[F4fred]

All beams is the only acceptable build

How do you engineer them?

 

[Deleted member 38366]

Beams and Thermal Vent simply go very nicely together to strip Shields.

Them covering the heat from SCB activation on quite a few Medium Ships with limited Utility slots and thus replacing a Heat Sink can be a nice bonus...

 

[Rick6549]

How do you engineer them?

Efficient

 

[Faded Glory]

I do have a couple of ships using a beam with thermal vent. Probably efficient engineered. One on an iCourier one on a Vulture IIRC.

Mostly I go for pulse lasers, efficient engineering (a couple of sniper ships engineered for long range) with usually scramble spectrum experimental and emmisive experimental on the long range ones. I can fire these continuously without draining WEP with 1 1/2 to 2 pips, and they comfortably take down NPC shields.

 

[Madrax573]

"Lasers - which, how and why?"

Yes, all of them, on all hardpoints, cos lasers!

 

[F4fred]

I do wonder if Star Wars fans like pulse and burst for the pew pew, blaster look and Star Trek fans go for beams for that fire phasers look! The ironic thing is you can only turn pulse and burst lasers into phasers with phasing sequence!

 

[BDelacroix]

“Absorb what is useful, Discard what is not, Add what is uniquely your own.”

 

[Northpin]

Currently i'm running this Gunship in High CZ.
1 Large gimbaled SRB Cannon - as PowerPlant Booster (piercing 70, high breach chance and damage)
4 Medium G5 Focused Fixed Burst Lasers - piercing 77 means they're equally effective to shields and hulls (no damage lost due to hull hardness)
2 small G5 Long Range Rails (SuperPen + Feedback Cascade) - utility/opportunistic use

the Gunship is a really stable support for fixed weaps but it's really slow, so long range weaps are helping a lot

Why bursts? - because medium beams have really low piercing (no focused engineering) and they do damage by the second while Burst are doing damage by shot and they're easier (for me) to hit with as fixed weaps.
Also, i have both bursts and rails on the same trigger - which means nice fire control. I usually fire burst click by click so rails are not firing due to their innate delay and i use long presses to go all out (bursts + rails)

Loving it.


Edit: updated build

 

[F4fred]

Currently i'm running this Gunship in High CZ.
1 Large gimbaled SRB Cannon - as PowerPlant Booster (piercing 70, high breach chance and damage)
4 Medium G5 Focused Fixed Burst Lasers - piercing 77 means they're equally effective to shields and hulls (no damage lost due to hull hardness)
2 small G5 Long Range Rails (SuperPen + Feedback Cascade) - utility/opportunistic use

the Gunship is a really stable support for fixed weaps but it's really slow, so long range weaps are helping a lot

Why bursts? - because medium beams have really low piercing (no focused engineering) and they do damage by the second while Burst are doing damage by shot and they're easier (for me) to hit with as fixed weaps.
Also, i have both bursts and rails on the same trigger - which means nice fire control. I usually fire burst click by click so rails are not firing due to their innate delay and i use long presses to go all out (bursts + rails)

Loving it.


Edit: updated build

Interesting info, thanks very much. The buff to piercing from focussed is something I had not realised. Achieved with a modest increase in thermal load too. Will have to try it.

 

[Dragsham]

On my corvette all my beams are overcharged thermal vent. Still cools fab. Drains dizzy so I have them across two fire buttons. Can always press both buttons lol.
Then. ... I swapped out the huge beams for 2 over charged oversized (wish I'd gone rapid fire) multicannons.
The 5 beams melt shields and sustained fire cos not so much strain on the capacitors.
2 MCs I fire alongside the beams.
They die quick!!

Note ,, swapped out one oversized for corrosive shell on the huge mc

 

[BradHann]

I do wonder if Star Wars fans like pulse and burst for the pew pew, blaster look and Star Trek fans go for beams for that fire phasers look! The ironic thing is you can only turn pulse and burst lasers into phasers with phasing sequence!

Shock cannon look the most like star wars pew pew guns.

 

[EvoBeardy]

I run 2x Huge Beams with Efficient and TV on my Corvette, purely to keep Distributor drain down and have more time on target.

Usually when using Beams, I'll have G1 Long Range with TV, I usually run Beams in conjunction with MCs for 'efficient-killing' builds.
But most of my builds now are much more about fun, with the exception of my Corvette. That has one purpose and one purpose only.

I have a quad Rapid Fire Burst/Pulse Clipper build, it drains the Distributor hellishly quick as you can imagine, but it's also hellishly fun.

Otherwise I'll run Focus Bursts for laser builds. I prefer Bursts and it's a shame Shock Cannons aren't able to be Engineered (Like G3 at most), purely because they're cool.

 

[Badman76]

I do wonder if Star Wars fans like pulse and burst for the pew pew, blaster look and Star Trek fans go for beams for that fire phasers look! The ironic thing is you can only turn pulse and burst lasers into phasers with phasing sequence!

Yes! I'm turning my corvette into a Arquitens class light cruiser

3 Large turreted pulse laser
2 Small turreted pulse lasers
2 Medium missiles

 

[F4fred]

“Absorb what is useful, Discard what is not, Add what is uniquely your own.”

Absorb what is useful - so that would be concordat sequence or regeneration sequence. Discard what is not - thermal vent or thermal shock! Got it thanks!

 

[F4fred]

I run 2x Huge Beams with Efficient and TV on my Corvette, purely to keep Distributor drain down and have more time on target.

Usually when using Beams, I'll have G1 Long Range with TV, I usually run Beams in conjunction with MCs for 'efficient-killing' builds.
But most of my builds now are much more about fun, with the exception of my Corvette. That has one purpose and one purpose only.

I have a quad Rapid Fire Burst/Pulse Clipper build, it drains the Distributor hellishly quick as you can imagine, but it's also hellishly fun.

Otherwise I'll run Focus Bursts for laser builds. I prefer Bursts and it's a shame Shock Cannons aren't able to be Engineered (Like G3 at most), purely because they're cool.

I would like to see your Clipper build if you care to share it.
I imagine if shock cannons were able to be engineered they would be the dominant weapon. I keep meaning to try them, but haven’t got round to doing the unlock yet.

 

[EvoBeardy]

I would like to see your Clipper build if you care to share it.
I imagine if shock cannons were able to be engineered they would be the dominant weapon. I keep meaning to try them, but haven’t got round to doing the unlock yet.

Certainly!
Clipper

It is still very much a work in progress. My initial aim was a Cool Running build, keep a low profile under 19% cruising speed.
Doing Megaship Data Hacking and be able to fight off attackers quickly to escape, sorta thing.

It does run a few percent warmer than EDSY says it should be however, so I need to tweak it a little. I may rid the shields altogether and add another HRP, but the added layer is nice to have.

Still, things go pop very quickly and it's such a fun ship to fly, be nice if it had a little love (as with other now neglected ships), but hey ho!

 

[F4fred]

Certainly!
Clipper

It is still very much a work in progress. My initial aim was a Cool Running build, keep a low profile under 19% cruising speed.
Doing Megaship Data Hacking and be able to fight off attackers quickly to escape, sorta thing.

It does run a few percent warmer than EDSY says it should be however, so I need to tweak it a little. I may rid the shields altogether and add another HRP, but the added layer is nice to have.

Still, things go pop very quickly and it's such a fun ship to fly, be nice if it had a little love (as with other now neglected ships), but hey ho!

Thanks very much. I am going to have to try something similar! Love the Clipper too. Did you consider using a weapon focussed PD to give a bit more pew pew time?