Any value in Long Range Gimballed weapons?

[Scoob]

Hey all,

Just returning to the game after a long break - from before the Fleet Carriers update was live - and I was wondering about the state of Long Range Gimballed weapons...

I jumped into a partially Engineered Viper Mk III last night, which has two C1 G3 Gimballed efficient Beam Lasers with Thermal Vent. These work shocking well under 500 metres. It also has a pair of C2 G3 Gimballed Long-Range Pulse lasers - no experimental effect yet. These Pulse Lasers have a range of 4.5 Km IIRC and will do full damage at that range, which is nice. However they wobble SO MUCH when tracking - or rather attempting to track - a target at this range that I wonder if they're any use at all.

I used to always use Fixed weapons with Long Range for sniping, benefiting from the greater damage etc. I was fairly good at aiming with fixed weapons at one point, but am totally out of practise now. I guess I'm just shocked how bad Gimballed weapons are when paired with the Long Range modification.

For the record my main fun combat ship is a Krait 2 with two Gimballed Efficient Beams with Thermal vent and three Gimballed Frag Cannons with various effects. An absolute beast up close and great fun. Previously I'd had Fixed Frags on this ship - like I said, I used to love fixed weapons - but they simply did not work. I could be point blank with an Anaconda, fire the Frags and the shots would just pass through the target ship doing zero damage - a fact observed by my Wing Mate. Once I switched to Gimballed however, they owned. My experiments with fixed Frags was a long time ago now, so perhaps I experienced some bug or something. Regardless, they did not do any damage to target, where the Gimballed ones were great.

Anyway, from what I've observed Gimballed weapons can be really good up close - which plays to using Efficient mods - yet they really lose the plot when paired with a Long Range mod. I was using the Viper Mk III as a fun, fast ship to get back into the game while using easy to aim Gimballed weapons. However, I've come unstuck a bit with the Gimballed Long Range Pulse Lasers as they struggle to hit anything at their extreme range. Note: they were G1 - about 3km Range - and weren't great at hitting things then. You'd expect - or at least, I would - that something than increases Range would be fairly keen to ensure it can still actually hit things at this range...but perhaps not.

What are people's experiences with Long Range Gimballed weapons? I like them in theory, sniping from a distance is fun and the Long Range Turrets I've got on some ships are bloody amazingly accurate.

Scoob.

 

[Mercury7]

Never tried.

I have other weapons with projectiles so long-range combat isn't my thing, but I'm fairly sure I read this is a "side effect".

I prefer knife-fights but with cannons.

 

[Maymo]

Gimballed weapons really aren't that great at 3km+ with any mod. The main benefit of long range is removing the damage falloff, it's why g1 long range (3600m) is often more than you need. Remember that you can deselect your target at long range to tighten up your gimbal accuracy, although you may want to avoid doing this if your opponent is in a furball with the cops, you might shoot one...

A Viper3 doesn't have much business being 4.5km from the battle anyway, it's fast enough to close the distance quickly and maintain accuracy with gimbals, and if you do zip past and flip around 2km away then long range is still going to be a solid choice for a mod. You probably don't need beams AND pulses though, the little distributor will struggle. Consider keeping the beams up top and get some overcharged multi cannons underneath, maybe with corrosive for more pain.

 

[goemon]

and throw an emissive effect on one of those, for better gimbal tracking.

medium pulses/bursts focussed are also interesting as a middleground, as the mod pushed the penetration value to good levels as well as pushing out the damage fall-off a bit.

 

[Northpin]

Short answer - NOPE
With capitals

The Wobble affecting all the gimbal weapons is absolutely atrocious
You will have a hard time hitting a small ship at 3km. Valid for most of the medium targets too.

For long range use only fixed or turrets.

 

[Old Duck]

I'm more likely to go with a short range blaster on a gimbal or turret, since these often miss a smaller target at range. Long range is my default for fixed beams and rails, since the microservers kinda act as gimbals themselves as you increase your range (a target further out will move less across your screen due than once closer to you).

 

[CMDR Harada]

I use them to draw aggro from an NPC in my Vette at 4-5k, then I can hose them down once they close under 3k. They're useless for LR damage with the jitter, but enough to tap an NPC on the shoulder.

On my Vulture I use them because they don't have damage fall-off. I'm usually inside 3k, but IIRC, the break even point was like 1.5k versus overcharged. I had to use them versus en Elite Annie a week ago ( did a reverski and stayed at 3.5k ), the target was big enough that I could hit it reliably.

So they have their use.

 

[Jmanis]

Rumour has it you want long range with fixed, because then combat pretty much becomes a point and click adventure of "Kill enemy with weapons".

 

[Scoob]

Thanks for the replies guys, appreciate it.

You've basically confirmed what I thought. I used to play with long-range fixed weapons and they were pretty darn effective - once my aiming improved. However, I'm a bit sucky again now after a long time with no practise. My main fun combat build uses Frags, so I was very much an up close and personal fighter - which was great fun. I also have some larger ships - my Trade Cutter - which has some long-range Pulse Turrets on it from when I was experimenting and it was shockingly effective. It does indeed seems that Gimbals drew the short straw here when LR is applied as it really should reduce the jitter to compensate, while perhaps lowering RoF slightly.

@goemon - I have played with emissive and while is does prevent a target from so easily breaking my lock - i.e. if they drop a heatsink etc. - but it does not in any way reduce jitter when a target is acquired. It does, if I remember rightly, decrease the "scrambled" time when Chaff is used by the target though. I never used to really worry about Chaff, in fact it was amusing to see targets spam the stuff as I continued to hit them with my fixed weapons. However, that skill is lost for the time being lol.

Basically, I'm just getting back into the game and playing with different things. I had great success in the past with long-range fixed weapons, which do take a degree of skill to use. Turrets with LR seemed to be almost too effective at times, while Gimballed weapons with it basically suck - unless you're sufficiently close to the target that a different effect might make more sense.

I think I prefer getting in close, staying on a ship's tail and fragging them. However, equally, it is fun to play with vastly different loadouts. While I couldn't really benefit from the longer range of the C2 Pulse Lasers in my Viper, it was fun fighting in such a small and relatively weak ship.

@Jmanis rude, lol. When you have a Corvette / Anaconda / Cutter with turrets I don't think you even need to click... Much of the fun with long-range Fixed was building the skill to make them effective. Once I was good with them, it could feel a little easy vs. most foes. I might take a larger ship if the whim takes me, but I really enjoy fighting in smaller ships. Last time I played I built a "Combat Asp Explorer" it wasn't very good vs. most other ships but a total hoot to fly. I regularly took Hull damage - did I mentioned it wasn't very good? - but it was a total rush to fly. I even tricked out my ancient Type 7 for a laugh and that was...well, it was terrible of course, but I had fun...especially once my wing mate saw what I'd brought to the fight and he ran away before I did!

Scoob.

 

[Maymo]

Thanks for the replies guys, appreciate it.

You've basically confirmed what I thought. I used to play with long-range fixed weapons and they were pretty darn effective - once my aiming improved. However, I'm a bit sucky again now after a long time with no practise. My main fun combat build uses Frags, so I was very much an up close and personal fighter - which was great fun. I also have some larger ships - my Trade Cutter - which has some long-range Pulse Turrets on it from when I was experimenting and it was shockingly effective. It does indeed seems that Gimbals drew the short straw here when LR is applied as it really should reduce the jitter to compensate, while perhaps lowering RoF slightly.

@goemon - I have played with emissive and while is does prevent a target from so easily breaking my lock - i.e. if they drop a heatsink etc. - but it does not in any way reduce jitter when a target is acquired. It does, if I remember rightly, decrease the "scrambled" time when Chaff is used by the target though. I never used to really worry about Chaff, in fact it was amusing to see targets spam the stuff as I continued to hit them with my fixed weapons. However, that skill is lost for the time being lol.

Basically, I'm just getting back into the game and playing with different things. I had great success in the past with long-range fixed weapons, which do take a degree of skill to use. Turrets with LR seemed to be almost too effective at times, while Gimballed weapons with it basically suck - unless you're sufficiently close to the target that a different effect might make more sense.

I think I prefer getting in close, staying on a ship's tail and fragging them. However, equally, it is fun to play with vastly different loadouts. While I couldn't really benefit from the longer range of the C2 Pulse Lasers in my Viper, it was fun fighting in such a small and relatively weak ship.

@Jmanis rude, lol. When you have a Corvette / Anaconda / Cutter with turrets I don't think you even need to click... Much of the fun with long-range Fixed was building the skill to make them effective. Once I was good with them, it could feel a little easy vs. most foes. I might take a larger ship if the whim takes me, but I really enjoy fighting in smaller ships. Last time I played I built a "Combat Asp Explorer" it wasn't very good vs. most other ships but a total hoot to fly. I regularly took Hull damage - did I mentioned it wasn't very good? - but it was a total rush to fly. I even tricked out my ancient Type 7 for a laugh and that was...well, it was terrible of course, but I had fun...especially once my wing mate saw what I'd brought to the fight and he ran away before I did!

Scoob.

Second time this week someone's mentioned long range turrets, I really must try these soon...

 

[Scoob]

Second time this week someone's mentioned long range turrets, I really must try these soon...

They're worth playing with. I recall popping them on my Cutter ages ago - I think I had some in storage from when I was wasting materi...erm, experimenting with different effects. This was my Trade Cutter, under-shielded, but fast, with hand-me-down weapons on it. I was in the process of running away from a Pirate, letting my turrets do their thing, and suddenly the Pirate was dead. Playing around further saw them working really well. Basically the Cutter's speed meant it could readily kill what caught it and run away from anything that was a genuine threat.

Chaff still confused the Turrets of course, but far less then it seemed to confuse Gimballed weapons. Plus, being Pulse Turrets, the distributor draw was so low the wasted shots didn't hurt their ability to keep firing.

Caveat: it was a while ago I last played with LR Turrets, there have been multiple updates since and I don't know what might have changed balance-wise.

Scoob.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

Why would you need gimbals for long range?

 

[Scoob]

I actually think something is broken with the long range mod...

Checking the "Modification" option in Outfitting, one of my LR Pulse Lasers shows a current range of 5,249 metres, the other slightly higher at 5,255 Metres. Essentially the same. However, in-game, both of these weapons show as out of range until I'm within just over 3,000 Metres away - why are they not working at their full, advertised range?

@Navigare Necesse Est - there is no need, I'm just playing around to see if they still suck. They do. Plus I suck a little bit too being out of practise... I had to bring up my control mappings cheat sheet as I'd forgotten some of them lol.

In fact, it's the exact opposite, the last thing you need if you want your long-range weapons to actually hit things at long range is the Gimballed version. They're really quite rubbish. As someone mentioned, they are fairly good at tagging a ship to agro it and they're ok at under 2,500 - 3,000 Metres on larger ships, but the amount of jitter is insane.

Once I've practised some more, I'll have a play with Fixed again - I did used to prefer them, but equally they did make things quite easy...once I was good with them.

I've got some much Engineered gear from when I was just playing around - I'd fill my Material Storage bins many times over with what I've wasted on dead-end mods lol.

Scoob.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

I actually think something is broken with the long range mod...

Checking the "Modification" option in Outfitting, one of my LR Pulse Lasers shows a current range of 5,249 metres, the other slightly higher at 5,255 Metres. Essentially the same. However, in-game, both of these weapons show as out of range until I'm within just over 3,000 Metres away - why are they not working at their full, advertised range?

@Navigare Necesse Est - there is no need, I'm just playing around to see if they still suck. They do. Plus I suck a little bit too being out of practise... I had to bring up my control mappings cheat sheet as I'd forgotten some of them lol.

In fact, it's the exact opposite, the last thing you need if you want your long-range weapons to actually hit things at long range is the Gimballed version. They're really quite rubbish. As someone mentioned, they are fairly good at tagging a ship to agro it and they're ok at under 2,500 - 3,000 Metres on larger ships, but the amount of jitter is insane.

Once I've practised some more, I'll have a play with Fixed again - I did used to prefer them, but equally they did make things quite easy...once I was good with them.

I've got some much Engineered gear from when I was just playing around - I'd fill my Material Storage bins many times over with what I've wasted on dead-end mods lol.

Scoob.

The point of LR was that the damage falloff is eliminated. No so much the range.

 

[Maymo]

I actually think something is broken with the long range mod...

Checking the "Modification" option in Outfitting, one of my LR Pulse Lasers shows a current range of 5,249 metres, the other slightly higher at 5,255 Metres. Essentially the same. However, in-game, both of these weapons show as out of range until I'm within just over 3,000 Metres away - why are they not working at their full, advertised range?

@Navigare Necesse Est - there is no need, I'm just playing around to see if they still suck. They do. Plus I suck a little bit too being out of practise... I had to bring up my control mappings cheat sheet as I'd forgotten some of them lol.

In fact, it's the exact opposite, the last thing you need if you want your long-range weapons to actually hit things at long range is the Gimballed version. They're really quite rubbish. As someone mentioned, they are fairly good at tagging a ship to agro it and they're ok at under 2,500 - 3,000 Metres on larger ships, but the amount of jitter is insane.

Once I've practised some more, I'll have a play with Fixed again - I did used to prefer them, but equally they did make things quite easy...once I was good with them.

I've got some much Engineered gear from when I was just playing around - I'd fill my Material Storage bins many times over with what I've wasted on dead-end mods lol.

Scoob.

I was running a gimbal long range setup on a Phantom just last weekend, I won't go as far as to say they were super-effective but they definitely weren't as bad as you're experiencing. They scored plenty of hits, the jitter was manageable and they achieved their stated range on the HUD...

Something seems off, what are your sensors like? The only thing I can think of that would cause such disastrous results would be gimbal long range bursts with inertial impact...

Maybe they need re-engineering. ?

Or maybe you've just been spoiled with long range fixed...

 

[Northpin]

The point of LR was that the damage falloff is eliminated. No so much the range.

Yes, but it doesn't really worth it.
Up to 1.3km an efficient beam will do more or at least just about the same damage, but will less power and distro draw - which means it can fire more, thus dealing more overall damage.

Between 1.3 and 2km it will do less damage, but it will still be able to fire longer bursts than long range - easily compensating the damage lost

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

If you have already used fixed, just keep practicing. That experience isn't gone completely, but gone rusty. Fixed is best.

 

[photomankc]

Depends a bit on the boats you might be up against. If smalls, yeah your only sorta scanning over them now and again at longer ranges. Mediums you get a little more hitting in but they are usually slower and easier to keep tight to anyway. Me I like in my big wallowing whale Cutter. She's usually fighting something big and wallowing as well and I can boost, flip and put a lot of beam onto those big hulls from a pretty long way out with a huge. Maybe a little loss at the edges unless they are chaffing. Then it's rails time.

 

[rgiles1818b]

Combat is the weakest part of my gameplay. I have a fully engineered Vulture with Gimballed Burst Lasers which works best for me. I only do Regular RES Bounty Hunting if I do combat at all. As a beginner combat pilot this is the best setup I have tried.

 

[Maymo]

Combat is the weakest part of my gameplay. I have a fully engineered Vulture with Gimballed Burst Lasers which works best for me. I only do Regular RES Bounty Hunting if I do combat at all. As a beginner combat pilot this is the best setup I have tried.

Well to be fair the Vulture is probably the first ship where a player starts to feel completely content in combat, its got the right balance of speed/shields/firepower and agility to dominate all other small ships and can take on bigger game for a challenge.

It gets even easier as you move into the more expensive ships. And for me RES combat does tend to be the most enjoyable...

CZ zones are cool as well but I think they could do with a rebalance so less capable ships without engineering can still get involved and play. Seriously, the ships just soak up so much damage if your ship isn’t tooled up...

The framework is already there, we have low/normal/high cz’s they just need to adjust the mission boards and rewards so that it isn’t exploitable.