2 questions on pulse lasers

otto

otto
Hi All,

I have just moved from the Vulture to the Fer-De-Lance - I really loved the Vulture and expected to love the extra fire power of the FDL...i'm a bit underwhelmed.
The Vulture had 2 3E gimbaled Pulse lasers which were great, the FDL has 4 2F gimballed pulse lasers and 1 3E gimballed pulse laser, so in theory I should be doing more damage than the Vulture, yes ?
I.E 4x 2F lasers alone should be better than the 2x 3E lasers (4x 3DPS against 2x 4DPS)--- is that right or have I missed something ?
I have disabled the 3E laser as well when testing.

If that is correct, it doesn't 'feel' like I am destroying the same ships any quicker, in fact it feels quite a bit slower.
I could be wrong, but that is my perception.

The second question is, on the FDL as I said in the Huge middle hard point I have a 3E pulse laser, along with the 4 2F lasers, when in combat the 3E laser doesn't seem to fire, out of actual combat just firing at nothing they all work together - eventually the rate of fire gets them out of sync, but they all still fire ok. I have checked my power consumption and and i'm under 100%.

So is this a bug do you think ?

Thanks for any advise/comments.
 

Poseidal

Poseidal
The top and bottom hardpoints have difficulty hitting below/above the plane of the ship from the shape of it (the side ones seem ok though), which might be the cause of it?

The huge hardpoint is quite a bit low down, and not near the front so may only get 5 degrees on a gimbal (I've only used fixed weapons on there though, so someone else might be able to help).

In terms of not destroying the same ships as fast, there's a damage penalty for smaller weapons against 'larger' hulls, so the mediums are suffering something like a 30% reduction for firing against an Anaconda compared to a large.
 

Eagle Eye

Eagle Eye
Against large ships with all pulse lasers, I think it IS weaker vs. Vulture due to the penalties on the C1 & C2 weapons.

The "point" of the FdL is the C4 weapons, preferably the C4 Plasma Accelerator, that way you can 1-2 shot unshielded Anacondas. With anything other than C4 weapons there, you might as well not bother.
 
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metatheurgist

metatheurgist
IMO, the one C3 pulse laser on my vulture was outperforming the C2 and C1 weapons on my cobra combined, so no I don't believe 4 C2s would be better than 1 C3 but that's just my perception. You're wasting the C4 hardpoint by putting a C3 weapon in it.
 

imashination

imashination
Very roughly a medium weapon does the same damage as two small ones, a large weapon does the damage of two mediums etc. Your 4 medium pulse lasers will be doing the same damage as the two large ones from your vulture. The difference here is that you have a HUGE hardpoint available; virtually doubling your damage ability. If all youre doing is sticking a pulse in it, its really going to waste, the power unit cant keep up with 4 medium lasers, a larger one wont help you much as youll be power starved anyway.

Personally I keep a huge gimballed canon in there and save it for asp/python/anacondas. If youre lucky it will take out a power plant in 2-3 hits.
 

Rikk

R
imashination said:
Very roughly a medium weapon does the same damage as two small ones, a large weapon does the damage of two mediums etc. Your 4 medium pulse lasers will be doing the same damage as the two large ones from your vulture.
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Yes, although it depends on your target.
There are damage penalties on smaller weapons hitting large targets. So 4x C2 pulse would hurt a cobra just as much as 2x C3 pulse. However against an anaconda your C2 pulses will be doing less damage due to the penalties. So it will always feel slower hitting the big ships with 4x pulses.

However, you are spot on. Once the shields are stripped the FDL should be employing it's huge hardpoint on the bigger ships to take them down.
 

Stormprooter

Stormprooter
metatheurgist said:
IMO, the one C3 pulse laser on my vulture was outperforming the C2 and C1 weapons on my cobra combined, so no I don't believe 4 C2s would be better than 1 C3 but that's just my perception. You're wasting the C4 hardpoint by putting a C3 weapon in it.
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IIRC, there is a modifier in place based on ship size. Basically, a class 1 pulse laser on an Anaconda is more powerful than a class 1 pulse laser on a Sidewinder. I cannot recall the exact details (and I'm too lazy to search the forums), but Mike Evans explained that it was an extra balance so that a small starter ship would not be too powerful against larger ships - or something like that. I'm not sure if the modifier only applied to hull damage and module damage, or to shields as well.
 

soma

soma
Stormprooter said:
IIRC, there is a modifier in place based on ship size. Basically, a class 1 pulse laser on an Anaconda is more powerful than a class 1 pulse laser on a Sidewinder. I cannot recall the exact details (and I'm too lazy to search the forums), but Mike Evans explained that it was an extra balance so that a small starter ship would not be too powerful against larger ships - or something like that. I'm not sure if the modifier only applied to hull damage and module damage, or to shields as well.
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Are you sure? I was always under the impression that it works the other way round and smaller weapons had penalties against larger ships.

Eagle Eye said:
If you stick anything other than C4 weapons there, you're doing it wrong.
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I tried to make the C4 weapons we currently have work, I really did. Unfortunately both the Cannon and the Plasma Accelerator are only useful against big, slow NPC targets. Which makes a C4 weapon in the Huge slot a waste in many fights, especially when it really matters: when I am fighting other players. I hope FD will give us other huge weapons soon, I would love to try a class 4 beam ... or a class 4 railgun..
 
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Poseidal

Poseidal
Increasing the projectile speed may help a little. The Cannon is so slow, it felt like by the time it reached the target, you could have burnt it down with a beam laser before the impact (exaggeration).
 

Stormprooter

Stormprooter
soma said:
Are you sure? I was always under the impression that it works the other way round and smaller weapons had penalties against larger ships.
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Nope, not entirely sure, but if you are right, then a smaller weapon is just a smaller weapon that does less damage - why have a modifier against larger ships?
 

soma

soma
Stormprooter said:
Nope, not entirely sure, but if you are right, then a smaller weapon is just a smaller weapon that does less damage - why have a modifier against larger ships?
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I am not sure either, I try to follow the dev posts as closely as possible, but unfortunately it is easy to miss important things. I always thought the modifier was there to make smaller weapons even LESS effective against bigger ships.
 

Stormprooter

Stormprooter
soma said:
I am not sure either, I try to follow the dev posts as closely as possible, but unfortunately it is easy to miss important things. I always thought the modifier was there to make smaller weapons even LESS effective against bigger ships.
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Just checked (but forgot to save the link - sorry) - and you are correct. Smaller weapons take a damage reduction modifier against larger ships.
A rule of thumb is the largest weapon size capable of being mounted on your target ship is the smallest weapon size you need to use to not get the damage reduction.

For example, a Cobra can mount class 2 weapons, therefore, class 2 weapons and higher do not get a damage reduction modifier against a Cobra, whereas class 1 weapons will get a reduction.
 
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soma

soma
Stormprooter said:
Just checked (but forgot to save the link - sorry) - and you are correct. Smaller weapons take a damage reduction modifier against larger ships.
A rule of thumb is the largest weapon size capable of being mounted on your target ship is the smallest weapon size you need to use to not get the damage reduction.

For example, a Cobra can mount class 2 weapons, therefore, class 2 weapons and higher do not get a damage reduction modifier against a Cobra, whereas class 1 weapons will get a reduction.
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Sweet, thanks for checking :)
 

fergal

fergal
brakaton said:
I think the FDL is junk. Medium hardpoints are pretty lame.
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But a huge hardpoint is pretty good if you know how to actually hit with it.

Size 1 weapons do 66% damage to the hull of medium sized ships, and only 33% damage to large sized ships.
Size 2 weapons do 66% damage to the hull of large sized ships.

If you have 5 pulse lasers on your FDL you will probably notice you can't shoot them for as long as 2 pulse lasers on the Vulture.
The power distributor is just as important as the weapons.
 
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