Engineers Beam Lasers & Engineering

Piwo

Piwo
I'm a huge fan of beam lasers, they're one of my favorite weapons in the Elite universe.
Recently I equipped my Krait MkII completely with beam lasers and went bounty hounting. I left quite early, because after like 2 seconds of shooting the ship turned into a sauna and the power plant was nearly burning... Completely impossible to shoot anything with this build*.

*without engineering the lasers.
And here I need you help, since I'm mostly using gimballed weapons, I wanted to use the experimental effect Thermal Vent on each laser to compansate overheating.
With all thermal vent, does it make sense to engineer them to Overcharge to increase the damage, or rather to Efficient to further decrease heat generation? What would you recommend?
 

S0rkvild

S0rkvild
Piwo said:
Recently I equipped my Krait MkII completely with beam lasers and went bounty hounting. I left quite early, because after like 2 seconds of shooting the ship turned into a sauna and the power plant was nearly burning... Completely impossible to shoot anything with this build*.
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Sounds like D or E class power plant to me. Not possible on A-rated PP. First of all - change your power plant to A-rated. If you have access to engineering - work towards shielded, it gives better protection and supports cooling which is important in beam builds. If you lack of power - add monstered mod to it. If your pp still has some juice - apply thermal spread mod for even better dissipation.
Speaking of beams... personally I prefer long range beams. For example my CZ Krait has two medium beams+ single large (all long range) + 2 two medium multi cannons (short range, one with autoloader second with corrosive shells). This setup works perfectly, I went through hundreds of CZ with it.
Small or very agile ships that allow you you to stay within 500-700 meters to avoid falloff and deal max damage are fine with short range, efficient or overcharged mods.
 

F4fred

F4fred
S0rkvild said:
Sounds like D or E class power plant to me. Not possible on A-rated PP. First of all - change your power plant to A-rated. If you have access to engineering - work towards shielded, it gives better protection and supports cooling which is important in beam builds. If you lack of power - add monstered mod to it. If your pp still has some juice - apply thermal spread mod for even better dissipation.
Speaking of beams... personally I prefer long range beams. For example my CZ Krait has two medium beams+ single large (all long range) + 2 two medium multi cannons (short range, one with autoloader second with corrosive shells). This setup works perfectly, I went through hundreds of CZ with it.
Small or very agile ships that allow you you to stay within 500-700 meters to avoid falloff and deal max damage are fine with short range, efficient or overcharged mods.
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There is no shielded power plant blueprint. Did you mean armoured? As for your Krait I assume you mean 2 large MC’s as the Krait doesn’t have 4 medium slots. Why did you go long range on the beams and short range on the MC’s? Seem an odd combination.
 

F4fred

F4fred
Piwo said:
I'm a huge fan of beam lasers, they're one of my favorite weapons in the Elite universe.
Recently I equipped my Krait MkII completely with beam lasers and went bounty hounting. I left quite early, because after like 2 seconds of shooting the ship turned into a sauna and the power plant was nearly burning... Completely impossible to shoot anything with this build*.

*without engineering the lasers.
And here I need you help, since I'm mostly using gimballed weapons, I wanted to use the experimental effect Thermal Vent on each laser to compansate overheating.
With all thermal vent, does it make sense to engineer them to Overcharge to increase the damage, or rather to Efficient to further decrease heat generation? What would you recommend?
Click to expand...
You have to be careful to check the actual different effects and see which works best for you at the range you like to fight at. For example although long range gives you full base damage out to 6km, because efficient gives a buff to base damage, efficient deliver more DPS out to 1km range. So if you like to fight in close like I do then long range is not a good choice. Efficient gives less thermal load, less power draw, less distributor draw and higher base damage than a stock beam laser. You shouldn’t need thermal vent with those so go for something that buffs damage a bit more like oversized. But it very much depends on how you plan to fight as to what engineering is best for you. That is part of the fun experimenting to find what works.
 

sinisalo

sinisalo
[VR] Orodruin said:
Thermal vent on efficient beams is the worst idea ever.
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I disagree and use this on most of my ships. Efficient is a great mod due to the increased damage and lower power profile with no disadvantage save the opportunity cost. Thermal Vent is great to avoid building heat. And the often-overlooked side effect is that continuous striking with thermal vent beams chills the ship so much it is like cloaking, or like popping heatsinks. Might not matter much in PvP, but against NPCs it works great, especially when taking on wings of NPCs, allowing you to saddle up while the target's wingmen can't resolve your ship on their sensors.

So taken as a whole, efficient, thermal vent beams substantially lower the power draw, which has a knock-on effect throughout my build, they do more damage than standard lasers (and some other mods), the cooling effect allows better use of other heat-generating weaponry and also have the added benefit of making my ship more survivable at the very moment when it is most vulnerable, that is while attacking another ship. For me, it's my favorite combination.
 

efoo

efoo
I also like the combo of Efficient beam with Thermal Vent. Actually I often have mixed Efficient beams with Thermal Vent + Efficient beams with Oversized. I don't PvP and I am not a good combat pilot, with my gimballed beams I can fire them at the enemies for a long time before draining the power dry.
 

[VR] Orodruin

[VR] Orodruin
sinisalo said:
So taken as a whole, efficient, thermal vent beams substantially lower the power draw, which has a knock-on effect throughout my build, they do more damage than standard lasers (and some other mods), the cooling effect allows better use of other heat-generating weaponry and also have the added benefit of making my ship more survivable at the very moment when it is most vulnerable, that is while attacking another ship. For me, it's my favorite combination.
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The point is, you would cool more and do more damage with an overcharged TV beam. The only drawback would be the distro and power draw, but if you have a distributor that can handle it and a reasonably good power plant, overcharged is simply better.
 

Morbad

Morbad
[VR] Orodruin said:
The point is, you would cool more and do more damage with an overcharged TV beam. The only drawback would be the distro and power draw, but if you have a distributor that can handle it and a reasonably good power plant, overcharged is simply better.
Click to expand...

If you are using multiple larger beam lasers, there aren't any distributors that will handle them being overcharged. Five efficient G5 beams on a Krait Mk II will empty the cap on an A7 G5 charge enhanced superconduit distributor with four pips in WEP in ~20 seconds. It's also rare to need more cooling than is possible with efficient thermal vent in these scenarios, because even the reduced thermal load is usually more than enough to negate all other thermal loads.

If you've only got one beam, then there may be a good argument for overcharged, on some ships...but that's not the case if the majority of your weapons are beam lasers.
 

Northpin

Northpin
Piwo said:
I'm a huge fan of beam lasers, they're one of my favorite weapons in the Elite universe.
Recently I equipped my Krait MkII completely with beam lasers and went bounty hounting. I left quite early, because after like 2 seconds of shooting the ship turned into a sauna and the power plant was nearly burning... Completely impossible to shoot anything with this build*.

*without engineering the lasers.
And here I need you help, since I'm mostly using gimballed weapons, I wanted to use the experimental effect Thermal Vent on each laser to compansate overheating.
With all thermal vent, does it make sense to engineer them to Overcharge to increase the damage, or rather to Efficient to further decrease heat generation? What would you recommend?
Click to expand...

Efficient with thermalvent
Or
Efficient with Oversized for a minor dps boost
or
Efficient with flowcontrol for a minor power save

Else you run out of PD wep capacitor rather fast
 

Maymo

Maymo
Overcharged/Thermal Vent is good if you have the juice but your engagement range has to be kept in constant check and it depends on your ship.

G5 overcharged beams will actually do less damage than G1 long range beams past 1500m, then you also have the distributor draw to consider. If you're finding yourself frequently jousting with npc's and floating out beyond 1km then overcharged is probably just going to become a hindrance. They're good for alpha damage close up though.

Efficient has the benefit of sustain and rather good dps when close up, they're always a solid choice. A bit boring sometimes but the benefits are often too good to pass up. Most of the time I'd choose efficient over overcharged, I like my weapons to fire constantly so I can concentrate on piloting my ship. Efficient also allows you to be far more defensive and agile as it frees up more pips for eng/sys without lowering your dps, with overcharged you'll sometimes have no choice but to put 4 pips into wep which really isn't fun when you're under fire...
 

Darkman Returns

Darkman Returns
Maymo said:
Overcharged/Thermal Vent is good if you have the juice but your engagement range has to be kept in constant check and it depends on your ship.

G5 overcharged beams will actually do less damage than G1 long range beams past 1500m, then you also have the distributor draw to consider. If you're finding yourself frequently jousting with npc's and floating out beyond 1km then overcharged is probably just going to become a hindrance. They're good for alpha damage close up though.
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This is the point most people seem to miss when looking at the stats. Max damage may be lower at very close range with Long Range beams, but you are doing consistent damage all the way out to 6 km; basically if you are hitting them with LR Beams you are doing full damage.

It's also much easier to stay on target and firing at long range, as there will be relatively little Line of Sight movement of the target across your canopy when they maneuver. When the fight gets up close and personal you will not be hitting your target as much as any maneuvering the target does will result in much greater LoS movement as perceived by you, so you will spend more time repositioning and less time firing. And don't forget if you're firing but missing your target the Thermal Vent experimental will actually heat up your ship.

In PvE you can strip shields at range before NPCs can do more than tickle yours. In PvP it depends how good the other pilot is, but then that's true whatever weapons you have.
 

S0rkvild

S0rkvild
F4fred said:
There is no shielded power plant blueprint. Did you mean armoured? As for your Krait I assume you mean 2 large MC’s as the Krait doesn’t have 4 medium slots. Why did you go long range on the beams and short range on the MC’s? Seem an odd combination.
Click to expand...

Yes I mean armoured, close thing ;) Speaking of combination, not odd, simply pragmatical. Laser can fry from any distance without losing any damage, while multi cannons due to gimbal wobble are accurate up to 1500 meters. Short range mod on multis gives very noticeable damage boost over other mods, also slightly more dps than overcharged mod.
Why short range is superior to overcharged when it comes to multis? More dps, more ammo and unchanged distro draw. Only drawback is thermal load that is going to affect you only if your ship runs hot and you're running 4-6 multicannons with some of them laden with incendiary ammo. Decreased range of 2000 meters isn't an issue because you will be less likely to hit anything over this distance, especially with wobbling gimballed multicannon, so effective multicannon range is up to 1500 meters. I have re-engineerd all my overcharged multicannons to short in recent time, really like the result on all ships that use them.
 

Maymo

Maymo
Darkman Returns said:
This is the point most people seem to miss when looking at the stats. Max damage may be lower at very close range with Long Range beams, but you are doing consistent damage all the way out to 6 km; basically if you are hitting them with LR Beams you are doing full damage.

It's also much easier to stay on target and firing at long range, as there will be relatively little Line of Sight movement of the target across your canopy when they maneuver. When the fight gets up close and personal you will not be hitting your target as much as any maneuvering the target does will result in much greater LoS movement as perceived by you, so you will spend more time repositioning and less time firing. And don't forget if you're firing but missing your target the Thermal Vent experimental will actually heat up your ship.

In PvE you can strip shields at range before NPCs can do more than tickle yours. In PvP it depends how good the other pilot is, but then that's true whatever weapons you have.
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For sure, and I do really enjoy the tactics that long range provides, busting up an Anaconda from 5k out is rather satisfying, as is taking down runners when they're trying to retreat or snagging a bounty from half way across a RES that you can't reach on time. It's a great mod...

Someone here yesterday (I think Morbad) mentioned that turrets don't jitter about at range like gimbals when using the long range mod. It's given me ideas. I've been meaning to give the Crusader a go (never even sat in one) and I've not used a turret on a ship since I was very noob. Might make a long range turret boat, blasting ships from afar with scramble spectrum while an SLF pecks at them. Then triple LR super pen rails as they'll be coming straight at me I'll be able to strike modules from bow to stern, I think it'll be fun...
 

F4fred

F4fred
[VR] Orodruin said:
The point is, you would cool more and do more damage with an overcharged TV beam. The only drawback would be the distro and power draw, but if you have a distributor that can handle it and a reasonably good power plant, overcharged is simply better.
Click to expand...
Distributor draw is the killer with overcharged. I ran 2 large on a Python with a fully engineered distributor and that would drain the distro very quickly. You can go weapon focussed for longer fire times, but that has drawbacks in other areas.
 

Maymo

Maymo
F4fred said:
You can go weapon focussed for longer fire times, but that has drawbacks in other areas.
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Unless it's a Krait, they use so little dist for boosting about that you can go all in with a weapon focused distributer. Notably the Phantom is the first ship in the game (I think) with a very oversized distributor for its hardpoints, especially when you consider that the poor T10 has to use the same one...
I did a weapon focused/overcharged beam set up on mine and it really kicked...
 
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CMDR X

CMDR X
Here's my full beam Corvette. She never overheats.
I have them set to make optimum use of the PD.
Group 1:
Fire 2 is the two Huge and the rest are Fire 1
Group 2:
Fire 2 is collector limpet and Fire 1 is just the small Thermal Vents (in the rare case the temps do start rising)

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