AX Weapon Advice

[nanothargon]

AX guns... so many choices, most of them are bad.

In an effort to save people time, this is the current state of Anti Xeno Meta as of 2023, in terms of weapons:

• Enhanced AX Multicannon: EXTREMELY effective at killing scouts; especially useful because they can be gimballed. Can maybe support a low-end interceptor kill. Bad against interceptors because low armor piercing. No unlock.
• Modified Plasma Charger: Fire like superfast PAs, sort of. Higher damage than gauss for low-end interceptors, but bad for scouts, medusa and hydra. Since the damage is absolute, they are also useful against human ships, so they can serve a dual purpose. Guardian unlock per unit.
• Guardian Gauss: The professional (AXI) choice; the Armor Piercing means they are the best weapon against all interceptors, but their fixed/delay fire mechanism (railgun) makes them hard to get used to. This is the anti xeno weapon of choice, and after a while, the only gun you ever really need, even for scouts. Bad against humans. One-time ever Guardian unlock.
• Beam laser, with thermal vent: This helps reduce your temperature below the magic 20%, so the interceptors miss you (if you're moving). It's also secondarily useful to take down the interceptor shield after destroying a heart, allowing you to save your limited AX ammo for when you actually need it. Also useful for 'tagging' a Xeno target for combat bond purposes (especially if long range).

It's also worth mentioning that you need Remote Release Flak launchers, which don't count against the 4 experimental weapon limit, to destroy the thargon swarm, because they are the only weapon that works against the swarm (other than soaking, baiting or avoiding the swarm). Point defence in particular doesn't work, even against thargoid missiles.

All other AX weapons are a waste of your time.

Discuss

 

[Brrokk]

I'm not an expert but I disagree because I'm finding Salvation's Shard Cannons very effective. I think they should appear in the list somewhere.

I guess they're not as good as Gauss on paper, but they're better for me because I hit more often with them.

 

[tolm]

I’m flitting between two setups:

2x C3 EAX MCs (gimballed) and 2x C2 Mod Shards

or

2x C2 Mod Plasmas and 2x C2 Mod Shards

The former is easier against Scouts and is decent enough against a Cyclops. The Mod Shards are excellent for nailing hearts by essentially eyeballing the shot.

The latter is no less effective against Scouts but can be frustrating if they get really fidgety with the spin up time on the Plasmas and needing a couple of good hits.

I also tried the MCs with Plasmas … which is AWESOME against Scouts but hearts don’t drop as easily without the shards … which is a shame as as I much prefer the Plasmas to the Shards in terms of how they fire, the noise, the heat, etc.