Bigger Cannons are... Genuinely kind of crap.

[Cmdr Maty83]

As per the title, larger cannons are genuinely terrible. In this post, I hope to show WHY larger cannons are awful and suggest a possible rebalance which would keep the spirit of the weapon the same while increasing its usefulness. Even statwise crunching the numbers, the first cracks show. Compared to its closest competitors in the slots (Namely, multi-cannons for the cheap kinetic and PAs for the heavy KO weapon, as well as the L missile rack to show how truly bad the cannon is), the Cannon sits in a weird position.

It doesn't have the damage even in its fixed form, being roughly 3/5 of a PA shot, nor does it have the muzzle velocity of the MC which makes aiming it more difficult (With the enemy being able to dodge if as well as the plasma). That all with the large having a very close DPS with the missile rack, but that particular weapon outclassing it with having a better damage type and application with very similar ammo capacity (Explosive being significantly better at bricking modules and doing more against hulls due to their natural weakness to explosive damage).

The DPS for all these weapons comes to the same, but the following issues come together to make the weapon into one for which better alternatives exist across the board.

• Low muzzle velocity: Even in the fixed form (Not speaking about gimbal and turret forms, where the velocity is worse), the velocity barely exceeds that of the plasma accelerator. This makes shots more difficult to aim, plus easier to avoid as smaller adjustments will lead to a miss for the ship with cannons.
  • It's important to note here that this is NOT an issue with the small cannons and to a lesser extent mediums: Their muzzle velocities are far higher, but the muzzle velocity goes down as the mounts become larger. If the velocity remained the same, we'd be talking about a very different weapon already.
• Engineering upgrades: The cannon has a weird set of experimentals which don't really do much for it: Dispersal Field, High Yield Shell and Force Shell being the uncommon specials it gets. Compare this to:
  • Plasma with Thermal Conduit, Phasing Sequence, Target Lock Breaker, Dispersal Field and Dazzle
  • Multi-cannon with Corrosive (The single greatest experimental you can have for increasing ship damage), Incendiary (In case lasers are lame), and Emissive
  • Emissive, little Grom Bomb, Overload and Penetrator for missiles. Of those the last one is particularly notable with its ability to nuke internal modules, basically making the Dumbfire missile superior to the potential of the High Yield Shell entirely
• Penetration loses value with larger weapon mounts: Aside from Plasma, whose AP is at 100 all the time, the Cannon has the highest AP, right? Which is true (At 70 and 90 for L and H mounts respectively). However, unlike with S and M mounts (Where the AP and higher DPS genuinely makes the cannon a better alternative versus the multi-cannon, at least against large ships), the Multi-cannons are already very close to the maximum
  • So much so with Corrosive Shell that an L multi-cannon will not only reach the necessary threshold for doing full damage to any ship other than a Type-10, but will also do +25% damage with each shot. The H cannon is even worse when compared to the rest as very few ships have their base armour value at 68+
• The per-shot damage is... Kind of Meh? Comparing the Plasma Accelerator, Dumbfire missile rack and Cannon when considering boom-and-zoom attacks shows that its profile is much closer to a missile and without HRPs, the cannon outright loses to the Missile once resistances are taken into account (Notably, said resistances will likely still keep the damage comparable while the missile has a higher RoF.) This means that even with comparable time on target, multicannons will only do significantly worse if the engagement is really short (Which is even less of an issue in the huge category as the huge MC doesn't have spin-up, acting as an autocannon instead. Notably for the L slot weapons, the multi starts winning with the exhaustion of the cannon until it runs out of ammo itself.)

With these four aspects, I hope to have shown that the weapon has very little space to be the best choice and is in many cases completely outclassed, even accounting for the greater power draw or ToT requirements. So, is there anything to do about it? Here are my suggestions:

• The cannon's muzzle velocity should be 1100-1200m/s for all variants and mounts. This in itself would significantly help aiming the weapon and increase effective damage
• Larger variants should get a burst DPS increase over other weapon types to account for AP values becoming inflated (Don't worry, it won't kill Plasma as that weapon type still has the niche of having Absolute damage).
  • Ideally, I'd accomplish this by slashing the mag size in half, but increasing damage and maybe touching RoF and reload speed. Sustained, it should be slightly below the multicannon, but the burst should be higher. This means the multi would be more effective with long ToTs. There is space for this as the damage potential of a full load is still around 1/7 lower than a Multicannon.
• Consider buffing the Experimental Effects on the Cannon to increase their value: Specifically, this concerns the extreme damage reduction High Yield Shell has, as well as the muzzle velocity for the Force Shell. Disrupting flight paths is a useful tool, but the lower muzzle velocity means subsequent hits become more difficult.
• Consider adding a Thermal and Corrosive payload experimentals... After all you can fit a lot of boom in a larger shell and those two would possibly improve build diversity (Corrosive to facilitate its effect and Thermal in order to be able to bust down shields) Corrosive at least since it's the only Kinetic weapon without the mod.

That's it. I hope you leave some feedback down below.

 

[DemiserofD]

I like the thought invested, but I do think you have some misconceptions.

The thing is, cannons have the best DPE of just about anything in the game. I mean, missiles are better, true, but missiles also have a lot more countermeasures against them. Cannons are meant to be supplementary weapons, while PAs are meant to be a primary weapon, due to their far poorer DPE.

Cannons are also FAR better in fixed variants than multicannons, because of how they're fired, even with the lower projectile velocity. It's nigh impossible to hold on target with a fixed multicannon, but a fixed cannon you can hit consistently with as long as you properly judge the target's flight pattern.

It's true you lack corrosive shell, but they're not really meant to kill hulls in the first place, but rather modules. A single shot of a high-yield fixed huge cannon can zero all the modules on a small ship. It's jawdropping seeing what it can do; I was in a wing of corvettes with my cannon mamba, and they were utterly confused why all the ships were dying at 90% hull. It also makes accuracy far less of an issue due to the large internal damage radius.

Where cannons really fail is mostly in trying to use them on large ships, especially the corvette, but also the Anaconda. Despite the vette's higher agility, it just sacrifices too much and isn't agile enough to use them effectively.

Where they work much better is on the FDL and Mamba, where you've got the speed and agility to use them properly. Huge Gimballed or Turreted Cannons are always going to be of limited utility until we get ships with high enough Hardness for them to be worthwhile otherwise.

 

[Cmdr Maty83]

The thing is, cannons have the best DPE of just about anything in the game. I mean, missiles are better, true, but missiles also have a lot more countermeasures against them. Cannons are meant to be supplementary weapons, while PAs are meant to be a primary weapon, due to their far poorer DPE.

There is a certain limit to where more DPE stops being useful. While I agree that DPE is important (After all, why do we run charge enhanced distributors?), kinetics in general have good base DPE (Actually... Frags assuming a 50% pellet hit rate do match cannons)

Cannons are also FAR better in fixed variants than multicannons, because of how they're fired, even with the lower projectile velocity. It's nigh impossible to hold on target with a fixed multicannon, but a fixed cannon you can hit consistently with as long as you properly judge the target's flight pattern.

Even with this, plasma is just.... Better then, aside from the future usecase. If you're using cannons as supports

It's true you lack corrosive shell, but they're not really meant to kill hulls in the first place, but rather modules. A single shot of a high-yield fixed huge cannon can zero all the modules on a small ship. It's jawdropping seeing what it can do; I was in a wing of corvettes with my cannon mamba, and they were utterly confused why all the ships were dying at 90% hull. It also makes accuracy far less of an issue due to the large internal damage radius.

If that's the case, I'll try it. I've got the engi mats for it, which might change my opinion . But if the cannons are relying on one weapon mod, that is still a balance oversight. Which is also why I included the comparison with the missiles, as dumbfires have the Penetrator modification. And I haven't seen anybody use Point Defences in a while (While ECM doesn't work on dumbfires as far as I know)

Where cannons really fail is mostly in trying to use them on large ships, especially the corvette, but also the Anaconda. Despite the vette's higher agility, it just sacrifices too much and isn't agile enough to use them effectively.

Where they work much better is on the FDL and Mamba, where you've got the speed and agility to use them properly. Huge Gimballed or Turreted Cannons are always going to be of limited utility until we get ships with high enough Hardness for them to be worthwhile otherwise.

Considering the largest ships just don't have enough hardness, I was aiming at another type of remedy.

Thanks for the reply. In your opinion, which of the changes I proposed would be justified despite some of the things I may have missed?

EDIT: With further testing I am tearing some more hair out due to the wild balancing the game has. While the High Yield Shell certainly behaves like a meme weapon (I've been enjoying it quite a bit), it doesn't actually feel as powerful as it should to me. I could kill things faster and with less % of my ammo with the other options. Though if RNGesus smiles upon me, it works somewhat.

 

[DemiserofD]

EDIT: With further testing I am tearing some more hair out due to the wild balancing the game has. While the High Yield Shell certainly behaves like a meme weapon (I've been enjoying it quite a bit), it doesn't actually feel as powerful as it should to me. I could kill things faster and with less % of my ammo with the other options. Though if RNGesus smiles upon me, it works somewhat.

The thing you need to remember is that powerplay detonations are on a per-hit basis, not based on damage. So you need to pair your cannon with something else to tickle the core until it explodes.

Honestly, the most impactful change you could make to cannons is to add new ships with higher armor hardness. I wouldn't be averse to giving them corrosive shell too, but honestly, I'd rather they remove corrosive shell entirely, or nerf it substantially. It's meant to be a tool to help little ships against big ones, but it ends up being one of the most powerful effects you can possibly have in ANY circumstance.

IMO corrosive shell should cap out at something like 45, and maybe even limit stronger weapons to the same number if you use them. That way, you want it for weak weapons, but not for strong ones.

Nerf that experimental and a whole lot of other options like Focused would also become much more viable.

 

[Kissamies]

The one thing that has always cut my cannon experimentations short is the ammo capacity. I do res site and CZ PvE, and those require endurance that cannons don't have. Plasma Accelerators don't have it either, but Plasma Slug experimental fixes it for them. I would say that if the Cannon had enough ammo to last almost as long as MCs and have shot speed comparable to MC across the board, let's say 1200 like the Shock Cannon, they would be a nice low power plasma alternative with module sniping capabilities.

What I would really like to see is the enhanced AX variant, especially with small and huge sizes where they would fill empty slots. There is no small non-Guardian AX weapon or huge AX weapon of any kind. Give it more armor piercing and I believe it would really have a niche there.

 

[Shurimal]

It's nigh impossible to hold on target with a fixed multicannon

In PvE it's not a problem with medium and small ships. I've tried fixed MC setups on Phantom, Challenger and Cobra—it works well against all targets, but plasma slug PA-s are the best for extended bounty hunting sessions in medium ships.

I'd rather they remove corrosive shell entirely, or nerf it substantially

Please no. It's the only thing that makes small and medium ships viable in CZ-s, in haz RES-s against dangerous+ level 'Condas, Fed Bricks and Pythons, and against pirate lord 'Vettes during pirate assassinations.

 

[Kissamies]

EDIT: With further testing I am tearing some more hair out due to the wild balancing the game has. While the High Yield Shell certainly behaves like a meme weapon (I've been enjoying it quite a bit), it doesn't actually feel as powerful as it should to me. I could kill things faster and with less % of my ammo with the other options. Though if RNGesus smiles upon me, it works somewhat.

I seem to remember that High Yield Shell was nerfed at some point. Last time I tried to use a cannon, I didn't even bother with it, opting for Autoloader instead. I hate it when my weapon is stuck reloading when I have the shot.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

I stopped using kinetic weapons altogether. Reload, bad damage vs shields and non-hitscan made them infe4rior to energy. Rail I consider hybrid, not fully kinetic.
The cannon is just the worst of them all. Actually good: The space shotgun. Anything that isn't on a large (or larger) hardpoint: same thing - useless. Notable exception: Rail and missiles.

 

[DemiserofD]

The one thing that has always cut my cannon experimentations short is the ammo capacity. I do res site and CZ PvE, and those require endurance that cannons don't have. Plasma Accelerators don't have it either, but Plasma Slug experimental fixes it for them. I would say that if the Cannon had enough ammo to last almost as long as MCs and have shot speed comparable to MC across the board, let's say 1200 like the Shock Cannon, they would be a nice low power plasma alternative with module sniping capabilities.

Bear in mind, the synthesis cost is honestly pretty dang small. With a full materials stockpile you can synth like a hundred times. Cannons, especially, are quite nice in this regard, since it only costs 39 G1 mats for a standard(full clip) synth, and you get the 15% extra damage alongside it, while multicannons cost almost 100 G1 mats for a standard synth.

I seem to remember that High Yield Shell was nerfed at some point. Last time I tried to use a cannon, I didn't even bother with it, opting for Autoloader instead. I hate it when my weapon is stuck reloading when I have the shot.

High yield is mostly useful for larger varieties, where you already have excessive damage and prefer the splash radius instead. Smaller varieties are better off with more precision aim, instead.

In PvE it's not a problem with medium and small ships. I've tried fixed MC setups on Phantom, Challenger and Cobra—it works well against all targets, but plasma slug PA-s are the best for extended bounty hunting sessions in medium ships.

You might be surprised, especially at any range. The problem is, even as fast as they are, they still have notable travel time. If your target changes directions at all, all your perfectly-placed shots can easily miss. Cannons, by contrast, offer the possibility to time your shots around the target's movement and hit anyway.

Please no. It's the only thing that makes small and medium ships viable in CZ-s, in haz RES-s against dangerous+ level 'Condas, Fed Bricks and Pythons, and against pirate lord 'Vettes during pirate assassinations.

That's where cannons SHOULD be at their best. High module damage to damage powerplants, high AP to penetrate their hulls. The presence of corrosive shell renders that purpose moot.

I'm broadly fine with corrosive shell boosting smaller weapons AP, but it really should lose the flat 20% damage multiplier at least.

 

[Kissamies]

Bear in mind, the synthesis cost is honestly pretty dang small. With a full materials stockpile you can synth like a hundred times. Cannons, especially, are quite nice in this regard, since it only costs 39 G1 mats for a standard(full clip) synth, and you get the 15% extra damage alongside it, while multicannons cost almost 100 G1 mats for a standard synth.

I'm way too stingy with my materials to rely on that.

High yield is mostly useful for larger varieties, where you already have excessive damage and prefer the splash radius instead. Smaller varieties are better off with more precision aim, instead.

Yes, I used it with Huge. Still felt underwhelming. In retrospect it might be because I didn't have Overcharged. For smaller ones I've used Force Shell mainly to harmonise shot speed, but also because it's the true meme weapon.

 

[DemiserofD]

I'm way too stingy with my materials to rely on that.

AX combat has disabused me of stinginess with my mats. Far better to synth like mad and enjoy myself than to be miserable just to save a few minutes grinding. Especially since it'll probably save me time in the long run, since I don't have to run back to a station to rearm as often. It might just be bias from having had maxed out mat stocks for so long, but I think people are way to restrained on that front. I'm actually contemplating making a rapid fire huge cannon corvette.

Force shell is fun as a meme, but I don't feel like it makes much combat difference. What I actually prefer is thermal cascade, in tandem with a smaller weapon with thermal shock. One shot of cascade can bring their heat to boiling, and then you can keep them there with thermal shock, while leaving them completely vulnerable to fixed weapons. Then you use full cannonfire once their shields go down to absolutely shred their internals.

 

[Morbad]

Setting projectile velocity to a weird intermediate figure doesn't improve cannon because it further compromises their ability to synergize with other weapons. If anything, it would make them less useful than they are now. Likewise, lack of corrosive isn't a problem for cannon, because it would be foolish to put it on cannon, especially larger ones; far better to mount a small or medium MC or frag and put corrosive on that. Also, the largest benefit from corrosive has nothing to do with hull hardness/armor penetration, it's the flat increase to all incoming hull damage that makes it so potent and why it benefits any weapon (including collisions). I do think high yield shell was nerfed overly hard, but the rest of the cannon special effects are mostly fine.

Cannon have a few interesting attributes that make them compelling niche weapons, but I don't think any potential overhaul to cannon them all-round competitive with PAs or as broadly useful as MCs in PvE, without causing more problems than it fixes. The biggest problem with cannon isn't cannon, it's the rest of the game.

 

[Kaocraft]

Huge Multicannons should never have been a thing. This is the actual problem. Too late now; nothing may ever be removed from the game; but there was a time when larger ships didn't handle and fight exactly like scaled up Vipers.

Also once upon a time, the Force Shell experimental was actually interesting and amusing, but its effects were severely nerfed so that's one more avenue of use cases for canons removed.

 

[Rebel Yell]

Huge cannons should make a loud BOOOOOOOM sound and not like someone just f4r7ed behind your seat.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

They have one use, and if you are good with using them, they are devastating against opponents. Module sniping. That's all you should be using them for.

Main thing is, if you're running multiple and fixed, they need to all have the same shot speed (so careful with matching them and engineering if going long ranged... which you probably want to do to increase chance of hitting and reducing the lead on the shot).

Having said that, my Annie has 1 huge beam and the rest are turretted cannons, because i can and its just fun to watch the shots going off, and funnily enough, it does actually work. Its not the most effective combat ship i have by a long way, but it actually does work as long as i select the PP as the subtarget.

 

[Shurimal]

You might be surprised, especially at any range. The problem is, even as fast as they are, they still have notable travel time. If your target changes directions at all, all your perfectly-placed shots can easily miss.

No surprises—I've used fixed MC-s for a long time. If you consider their higher damage and the NPC chaff spam, they're IMO better on maneuverable ships than gimballed ones that I reserve for large ships that have trouble with distance control and getting the gun solution on Dangerous+ level Eagles, Couriers and FAS-s.

That's where cannons SHOULD be at their best. High module damage to damage powerplants, high AP to penetrate their hulls. The presence of corrosive shell renders that purpose moot.

Corrosive is for getting the hull of that Elite FAS or Python in a CZ down reasonably fast in any ship. These ships have very well protected power plants and I haven't ever managed to take it out before shredding the hull. If you want to get rid of corrosive you need to also either boost damage of all weapons across the board making beginner ships, haulers and explorers even more vulnerable to griefers or completely nerf HRP-s throwing AX combat balance out of the window, steamrolling it and spitting on it for good measure.

Cannons are not made irrelevant by corrosive, but by their muzzle velocity which in addition is different between different sizes. If it was 2000 m/s for all cannons, or even 4000 m/s as it is with the eAXMC-s balanced by rate of fire for larger ones they would have a use. As it is now, railguns and even missiles (for engines) are much better for shooting out modules.

 

[Cmdr Maty83]

Setting projectile velocity to a weird intermediate figure doesn't improve cannon because it further compromises their ability to synergize with other weapons. If anything, it would make them less useful than they are now. Likewise, lack of corrosive isn't a problem for cannon, because it would be foolish to put it on cannon, especially larger ones; far better to mount a small or medium MC or frag and put corrosive on that. Also, the largest benefit from corrosive has nothing to do with hull hardness/armor penetration, it's the flat increase to all incoming hull damage that makes it so potent and why it benefits any weapon (including collisions). I do think high yield shell was nerfed overly hard, but the rest of the cannon special effects are mostly fine.

Cannon have a few interesting attributes that make them compelling niche weapons, but I don't think any potential overhaul to cannon them all-round competitive with PAs or as broadly useful as MCs in PvE, without causing more problems than it fixes. The biggest problem with cannon isn't cannon, it's the rest of the game.

Competitiveness with PAs wasn't the goal. It was mainly to make them more viable against MCs and partially missiles, where the outline was for burst DPS over sustain, which would make them more differentiated.
As for the projectile speed: More important than the actual speed you set it to is UNIFYING it between variants and sizes, as that alone would benefit them substantially by making fixed size mix more viable where the hardpoint clustering benefits from it.

 

[Rebel Yell]

They have one use, and if you are good with using them, they are devastating against opponents. Module sniping. That's all you should be using them for.

That's true, but they do need additional weaponry to get rid of shields as they don't have a thermal damage output special effect (we've made use of them on some niche piracy builds, paired with beams or incendiary MCs). HY shells, if I'm not wrong, have been also nerfed some years ago...

 

[Morbad]

Competitiveness with PAs wasn't the goal. It was mainly to make them more viable against MCs and partially missiles, where the outline was for burst DPS over sustain, which would make them more differentiated.

They are already differentiated from these, just broadly inferior to MCs, excepting those cases where the unique cannon specials have a niche.

I'd argue they are fully competitive with dumbfires because dumbfires are extremely easy to evade (well maybe not for NPCs) and don't synergize with much of anything, due to these munitions not inheriting the velocity of the ship launching them.

If they aren't competitive with PAs, then PAs are still going to be the overwhelmingly popular choice. It's really hard to match the benefits of absolute damage.

As for the projectile speed: More important than the actual speed you set it to is UNIFYING it between variants and sizes

Only if you are running mixed sizes of fixed cannon, which is a purely arbitrary and probably sub-optimal loadout, no matter what is done to cannon (within reason).

 

[Shurimal]

I'd argue they are fully competitive with dumbfires because dumbfires are extremely easy to evade (well maybe not for NPCs)

Against most NPC-s missiles, both dumbfires and seekers, are useless since NPC-s usually have point defence turrets fitted.