Engineers Beam Laser - Long Range or Sturdy Mount

[BostromNZ]

I’m heading over to Broo’s soon and have got an awful feeling I’m going to make the wrong decision and waste all these mats I’ve been gathering for weeks.

What’s the consensus on beam lasers – sturdy mount or long range? I have two different applications: turreted C2 beams on a Vette and gimballed C3 beams on a Vulture.

I’ve crunched the numbers on long range and essentially on a max roll, the 20% DPS drop-off means max DPS drops from 22 to 18 (rounded) but the distance at which the max damage is dealt increases from 500m to 900m. I graphed this as best I could using the excellent damage numbers found here http://nosuchwebpage.com/index.php?post_id=195 – sorry I can’t find the original CMDRs name who did this analysis but kudos – and added the long range numbers myself. It’s not 100% accurate but it’s close enough.

As you can see, the tipping point is about 1.3km and at longer ranges, you are dealing much more damage albeit less than what you would be at closer range. My concern is the amount of combat that occurs within the 1.3km boundary which gut feels like a lot.

For the special effect, anyone know whether thermal vent is viable with turrets or do they miss too much? If so, I’ll go with thermal shock – might just go with TS anyway.

My other use is the 2x gimballed for the Vulture. For these I’m leaning towards sturdy mount but am considering short range blaster as the Vulture is so manoeuvrable (G5 upgrades all round almost make it OP IMO) so I want to get close to the enemy’s thrusters and stay there, using thermal vent to keep firing without overheating. Even so, max damage drops off after 375m which is not far and with a twin beam setup, the extra armour piercing might be more valuable.

Anyone tested these and have results? Any advice is welcomed.

 

[fruitbat]

Honestly, ditch the beams and go overcharged level 5 pulses, they are more effective

I love beams, but they just don't make any sense at the present time, maybe they will get some love sometime down the line.

However if you do go down that route, thermal vent on turrets would be a bad idea.

 

[BostromNZ]

Honestly, ditch the beams and go overcharged level 5 pulses, they are more effective

I love beams, but they just don't make any sense at the present time, maybe they will get some love sometime down the line.

However if you do go down that route, thermal vent on turrets would be a bad idea.

I'm upgrading 3x C3 pulses as well but I'm planning on rapid fire as I heard that was better than overcharged - although both seem to be better than beam mods.

Do beams not make any sense from a DPS perspective? Do overcharged pulses deal more DPS for the same PD draw and less heat? If that's the case then maybe I'll hold off on modding the beams - i just love the beam turrets and they work so well on the Vette.

 

[GG7]

You should be going for Lightweight Mount. At least if you want the best jump range possible. The secondary effects of that one can also increase damage effects and of course, you may get lucky and get an experimental effect.

All the C3 Beams I use have Thermal Shock on them which also turns the beam color a nice Ruby Red! It literally COOKS the target to the point of total system failure. Pretty awesome weapon!

 

[goemon]

Do beams not make any sense from a DPS perspective? Do overcharged pulses deal more DPS for the same PD draw and less heat?

actually no, beams make no sense compared to overcharged pulses.

yes, overcharged pulses deal more DPS for the same PD draw.

lightweight beams make sense, when you run a pve speed courier like me. or - i run a lightweight huge pulse on my FDL for jumprange .... like GG7 said above. might change to a ligthweight beam?

nice is a combination of corrosive MC plus beam, because the armour penetration values of a beam on top get mental then, and you can kill a condas powerplant in a few seconds.

i run a longrange beam with thermal shock for defense on my cobra - for that longrange is nice, keep them at distance till system security jumps in.

i run a shortrangeblaster beam sometimes on my dbs, nice effect: it stops firing earlier ;-)

but in both of your cases you'll be always better of with a OC pulse.

 

[Spacecat]

I usually just do grd 2 sturdy mount because the mats are easy to get and you can get a nice thermal reduction as a secondary effect.

 

[Non Grata]

G5 Rapid Fire pulse with a good jitter roll are great in the 500-1500m range that I'm normally in. Best of all worlds, if you can deal with a little heat.

 

[Heavenly-Hammer]

Do beams not make any sense from a DPS perspective?

No, they do not.

Beams currently only make sense purely as utility weapons. Regeneration Beam and Thermal Vent, specifically. As in, if you're not rolling one of those 2 very specific mods to address a very specific need on your ship(s), you mine as well not bother. Don't buy beams for the DPS.

 

[Damonwex]

I'm upgrading 3x C3 pulses as well but I'm planning on rapid fire as I heard that was better than overcharged - although both seem to be better than beam mods.

Do beams not make any sense from a DPS perspective? Do overcharged pulses deal more DPS for the same PD draw and less heat? If that's the case then maybe I'll hold off on modding the beams - i just love the beam turrets and they work so well on the Vette.

If you plan on upgrading to rapidfire beware of the heat. I put 5 rapidfire pulse lasers on my fdl and they overheat before I'm two thirds down the capacitor so yeah you gotta watch the heat.

 

[BostromNZ]

Thanks for the tips guys, I might go for G5 overcharged pulses for the Vulture to start with although I can G4 my beams on the way and hope for a special effect. Heat is an issue as I'm running overcharged and dirty drives. I want clean drives to counter it but I'm having a hard time finding the abnormal compact emissions.

 

[fruitbat]

I run 3 class 3 grade 5 overcharged pulses on my python, and have no heat issues even with grade 5 dirty drives an a grade 4 overcharged pp.

Also the same on my fdl, class 4 and 2 class 2 slots with overcharged, again no heat issues.

 

[kenworth]

I run 3 class 3 grade 5 overcharged pulses on my python, and have no heat issues even with grade 5 dirty drives an a grade 4 overcharged pp.

Also the same on my fdl, class 4 and 2 class 2 slots with overcharged, again no heat issues.

I do the same, but have incendiary on 2 of the MC's and I definitely have heat issues. I also have 2 medium turreted beams with thermal vent in an attempt to mitigate the heat issue, but to be honest that really doesn't work very well.

 

[fruitbat]

I do the same, but have incendiary on 2 of the MC's and I definitely have heat issues. I also have 2 medium turreted beams with thermal vent in an attempt to mitigate the heat issue, but to be honest that really doesn't work very well.

My other class 2s on both those ships are corrosive overcharged 5 multis, it makes a big difference to incendiaries as they generate lots of heat.

The turreted beams with thermal vent will make your heat much worse as well, as when shots are missing with thermal vent you generate much more heat, and turrets miss a lot...