Burst / Pulse / Beam post 3.0 and vette hardpoints

[FatFreddysCoat]

Has anybody seen any figures for these weapons post 3.0? I’m running long range oversize bursts on the S and M hardpoints on my vette but have never been 100% happy with them.

From what I think I understand they’re better against hull but worse against shields than pulse but I swear my old pulses felt better.

I used to run G4 long range pulse with phasing but could never find any figures to show what the advantage of phasing was other than damage was down 10% but I have no idea what the figures are for what the phasing bit actually does to compensate for this.

What do you all run on the S&M hardpoints? I’ve got G5 overcharged MC’s on the H&L points but have never been really happy or clear on what the best options are for the M&S that hits the hardest and drops shields the quickest.

Any figures / advice?

 

[[VR] DDM_Reaper20]

Has anybody seen any figures for these weapons post 3.0? I’m running long range oversize bursts on the S and M hardpoints on my vette but have never been 100% happy with them.

From what I think I understand they’re better against hull but worse against shields than pulse but I swear my old pulses felt better.

I used to run G4 long range pulse with phasing but could never find any figures to show what the advantage of phasing was other than damage was down 10% but I have no idea what the figures are for what the phasing bit actually does to compensate for this.

What do you all run on the S&M hardpoints? I’ve got G5 overcharged MC’s on the H&L points but have never been really happy or clear on what the best options are for the M&S that hits the hardest and drops shields the quickest.

Any figures / advice?

Good morning!

Phasing "bleeds" some damage through an intact shield, resulting in hull damage. Can be useful when an enemy is very low on hull, is making a run for it, and its shields have come back up. (I recently had a fight where my corvette's hull was brought to 72%, even though the shields were never brought down -- all thanks to a wing mission against a pirate who was clearly armed with phasing lasers . . . quite cool. )

Personally, I'm using railguns on the S and M hardpoints on my corvette. Very nice punch, excellent armour penetration, and with proper experimentals, heat is not much of a concern (much less so since I use a huge G5 long-range beam laser w. thermal vent to cool down...). (Super penetrator and that experimental that inhibits SCBs are obviously highly recommendable -- personally, I make do with plasma slug, as I am not that good a shot, and I like having more ammo...).

Have a nice day!

Kindest regards,

DDM_Reaper20

 

[FatFreddysCoat]

So what’s the best weapon for killing shields? I keep coming back to MC’s mainly because their damage drop off doesn’t start until 2000m but the reload for oversized is a killer plus there’s associated heat concerns and obviously the ammo limit.

 

[Starwolfe]

To me, its all in how you build the ship and choose to fly it.

My personal preference is a Dual Huge Efficient Beams with Thermal Vent backed by a Large High Capacity Corrosive Multi-Cannon and Efficient Emissive Pulse Turrets on the Small and Mediums. Powered with a Weapon Focused Power Distributor I don't ever run out of juice to keep the DPS constant from the beams - shields and hull alike melt under the pressure quite nicely in my opinion. The QoL gained from the Emissive Turrets have paid me back in spades from the headaches of Heatsink target loss effects, tho to be honest almost all the damage is through the Huge Beams and Multicannon as a result.

 

[Yosharian]

So what’s the best weapon for killing shields? I keep coming back to MC’s mainly because their damage drop off doesn’t start until 2000m but the reload for oversized is a killer plus there’s associated heat concerns and obviously the ammo limit.

I highly recommend Auto-Loader for Huge hardpoint Multi-Cannons, you will basically never have to reload this weapon ever again. I mean, unless you fire it constantly. But for general use, it's excellent. It's less effective on the smaller hardpoints, though.

I really don't rate Oversized. 3% bonus damage is pathetic compared to the other experimental effects.

The best way to take out shields is usually a thermal weapon such as a laser or an incendiary multi-cannon. Kinetic weapons are better against hull.

I'm not sure if you're aware of this but bigger hardpoint kinetics do more damage against larger ships' hulls. So a Huge Multi-Cannon does more damage to an enemy Conda hull for example than a Medium Multi-Cannon.

Shield damage isn't affected in this way, so as a rule of thumb it can be a good strategy to put Multi-Cannons (or whatever you're using to take out hull) on your larger hardpoints and Lasers (or whatever you're using to take out shields) on your small and medium hardpoints. The lasers' primary role is to knock out shields, and the kinetics primarily do damage to hull. Of course, this can change depending on your opponent's resistances.

 

[FatFreddysCoat]

I’m running corrosive on one huge and incendiary on the other huge and one large.

Long range bursts in all other hardpoints but with the oversized experimental.

It says “phasing is designed to defeat shielding” but is it? How? How do the figures reflect that, as I am happy to switch experimental to phasing but the only statistic I can see is that it drops damage by 10%.

Am I reading it wrong all this time, as “designed to defeat shielding” to me says it will take shields down but is it meant to say “designed to deal hull damage through shielding”?

 

[Yosharian]

I’m running corrosive on one huge and incendiary on the other huge and one large.

Long range bursts in all other hardpoints but with the oversized experimental.

It says “phasing is designed to defeat shielding” but is it? How? How do the figures reflect that, as I am happy to switch experimental to phasing but the only statistic I can see is that it drops damage by 10%.

Am I reading it wrong all this time, as “designed to defeat shielding” to me says it will take shields down but is it meant to say “designed to deal hull damage through shielding”?

Phasing is quite poor really. It doesn't do a lot of bleed damage. 'Designed to defeat shielding' means some of the damage goes through shields. It doesn't mean 'take down shields faster'.

Corrosive is wasted on a huge hardpoint. Corrosive has the same effect on enemy ships whether you mount it on a small, medium, large or huge hardpoint. Thus it's better on a smaller hardpoint. Incendiary is fine, though.

I'd put a Multi-Cannon with Corrosive in the Large hardpoint and put a better experimental effect on the Huge, but it doesn't really matter.

On the Bursts I'd put one with Scramble Spectrum, it's quite fun. On the others.. maybe Thermal Shock could be useful? Otherwise I guess Oversized is fine if you're not strapped for power.

 

[Starwolfe]

I’m running corrosive on one huge and incendiary on the other huge and one large.

Long range bursts in all other hardpoints but with the oversized experimental.

It says “phasing is designed to defeat shielding” but is it? How? How do the figures reflect that, as I am happy to switch experimental to phasing but the only statistic I can see is that it drops damage by 10%.

More accurately "phasing bypasses shields" by allowing I think 20% of the damage to bleed-through.

It is deceptive tho. On top of the 10% damage reduction, it takes shield resistances into effect then 20% of what's left ignores shields and causes hull damage to the target. You cannot target subsystems through the shields with it either.
Normal NPC shields have weaknesses to Thermal, but tougher ships and most Player ships correct that so the Phasing has even less of an impact.

While it has its uses, and can be quite helpful at certain times - its largely situational and can unintentionally become a hindrance.

Overcharged or Short-Range and Phasing may yield better results for energy weapons, but I find it more prudent to design the build without it.

 

[Yosharian]

More accurately "phasing bypasses shields" by allowing I think 20% of the damage to bleed-through.

It is deceptive tho. On top of the 10% damage reduction, it takes shield resistances into effect then 20% of what's left ignores shields and causes hull damage to the target. You cannot target subsystems through the shields with it either.
Normal NPC shields have weaknesses to Thermal, but tougher ships and most Player ships correct that so the Phasing has even less of an impact.

While it has its uses, and can be quite helpful at certain times - its largely situational and can unintentionally become a hindrance.

Overcharged or Short-Range and Phasing may yield better results for energy weapons, but I find it more prudent to design the build without it.

Short-Range for energy weapons? [where is it]

 

[Starwolfe]

Well, it depends. On some ships like a Vulture where you can stay glued to a target at point-blank range the damage increase can outweigh the loss of maximum range.

Or good turret placements can be useful to keep damage on targets that hug you too close to get a bead on with bigger guns.

 

[Bob Lighthouse]

Has anybody seen any figures for these weapons post 3.0? I’m running long range oversize bursts on the S and M hardpoints on my vette but have never been 100% happy with them.

From what I think I understand they’re better against hull but worse against shields than pulse but I swear my old pulses felt better.

I used to run G4 long range pulse with phasing but could never find any figures to show what the advantage of phasing was other than damage was down 10% but I have no idea what the figures are for what the phasing bit actually does to compensate for this.

What do you all run on the S&M hardpoints? I’ve got G5 overcharged MC’s on the H&L points but have never been really happy or clear on what the best options are for the M&S that hits the hardest and drops shields the quickest.

Any figures / advice?

Phasing has some bleed through to hull while shields are still up, and it's not affected by distance falloff to my knowledge.
I don't have any figures but it's not much.
You can see the hull go down as you're shooting the shields.

I use Imperial Hammers and rails both with feedback cascade in the c1/2 slots.
I have a corrosive, LR MC in the c3, and efficient thermal vent beams in the c4s.
That setup runs very cold so I can use SCBs without heat sinks.

Sometimes I put plasmas in the c4s, with an c3 efficient/thermal vent beam turret to keep the heat down.

 

[FatFreddysCoat]

I went long range as the damage drop off starts to occur at about 5-600m2 I think whereas long range I can be 2km behind an enemy and still hit them with 100% damage. In knife fighting range then overcharged would be better but a lot of these things tend to devolve into jousts so the overcharged tend to lose their advantage in a bigger ship, not so much in a FDL or Vulture which is more manoeuvrable.

 

[Lily from anim.o.v.e]

Short-Range for energy weapons? [where is it]

Thats when you like it cozy but your ship internal heating isn't working.

 

[Adhock]

From what I think I understand they’re better against hull but worse against shields than pulse but I swear my old pulses felt better.

That's backwards Rook.

Thermal weapons such as the ones you listed are the shield killers. Kinetic such as MC, Flak Cannons, and Cannons are the hull breakers. Explosives such as missiles and Torpedos are EXTREMELY dangerous to hull while doing no damage against shields.

Beams would be considered 'the best' damage option since they're a constant high powered steady stream but they drain the capacitors the quickest and tend to drive your own heat up as well. Though once the shield drops, they can cook your opponent as well. The real damage being frying the modules.

Pulse is considered the next best but that's because of 'spray and pray'. In truth a well controlled Burst laser hits harder.

Phasing module means the supposed lack of damage is actually not being applied to the shields but rather is bypassing the shield and doing damage to the hull.

Personally I tend to run Pulse lasers in those small and medium slots for shield killing and Fighter swatting but I need the power to run everything else. Though if I were building a pure combat build, beams would be an excellent way to go for shield killing.

I am currently experimenting however with an inverse using large energy weapons and missiles in the small slots. It does pretty well actually though ammo is an issue. Going to see if mag size increase will solve that.

 

[verminstar]

Short-Range for energy weapons? [where is it]

Thats the way I went because I prefer to be in yer face and will ram ye if I can, so fer me, more damage and less range is the way to go...with enough speed to make sure they cant just kite ye at distance. Anything with a large range will suffer against a knife fighter brawler who can get inside their optimal range and stay there ^

 

[Surprised Brony]

Just have to say something regarding corrosive on a huge hardpoint.

Corrosive is NOT wasted on a huge hardpoint. It's a good idea to put it there since corrosive doesn't reduce damage, but instead reduces ammo capacity. This means your huge Multi-Cannon still won't run out of ammo before everything else thanks to its low fire rate. Throwing corrosive on a small hardpoint forces you to replace a thermal weapon with kinetic, AND makes it easier to run out of corrosive ammo.

People are right that corrosive doesnt scale with weapon size, but there are other factors as well.

To reiterate, put corrosive on a larger hardpoint. Slower fire rate means more time before you need to restock that blasted thing.

 

[Lucius-Darcia]

Has anybody seen any figures for these weapons post 3.0? I’m running long range oversize bursts on the S and M hardpoints on my vette but have never been 100% happy with them.

From what I think I understand they’re better against hull but worse against shields than pulse but I swear my old pulses felt better.

I used to run G4 long range pulse with phasing but could never find any figures to show what the advantage of phasing was other than damage was down 10% but I have no idea what the figures are for what the phasing bit actually does to compensate for this.

What do you all run on the S&M hardpoints? I’ve got G5 overcharged MC’s on the H&L points but have never been really happy or clear on what the best options are for the M&S that hits the hardest and drops shields the quickest.

Any figures / advice?

I'm running on the C4 hardpoints one huge Beamlaser efficinent (Burst and Pulse suck. Long deploy time, low RoF and much time to miss the target) and a Huge MC overcharged.
On the C3 another MC overcharged, the two C2 are filled with packhounds ammo capacity and the 2 C1 hardpoints are very good filled with railguns sturdy FC.
I can't imagine anything else than Railguns on the class 1 hardpoints. They have the highest effective DPS in this class, good convergence and hey....they're fixed

 

[GG7]

Dual 4A Beam Lasers FTW.

Best weapon type you can plug into those unique dual mounts. Anything else is a complete waste of space.

 

[Redomus]

Dual 4A Beam Lasers FTW.

Best weapon type you can plug into those unique dual mounts. Anything else is a complete waste of space.

Personally I like the long range pulses, I tried bursts but they feel a bit meh. Pulse have a very nice sustained damage rate, even with phasing. It does a fair amount of damage. I used to run C4 long range oversized cannons on the 4's. The multis just dont seem to punch enough for my taste at long range.

A useful setup is 2 x C4 LR, 3 (2 x C2 and 1 x C3) x LR pulse one with phasing/emissive. 2 x C1 Rails, feedback/superpen. Or 1 C1 feedback rail and 1 x highcap multi with corrosive. (The latter is fiddly with groups due to only two fire buttons).

I have now taken to 2 x C4 efficient PA, TLB, Dispersal, 3 x OC multis (corrosive on a C2, emissive on the other). 2 x rails.

I sometimes swap out the mc's for the phased lasers depending on how long I need to stay in space. Long range plasmas are wonderful as you can hit even the smallest targets. I avoid the C4 multis now, unless they are fixed, I would rather have the burst damage in all honesty these days.

 

[GG7]

Looks like you have never actually tried using the 4A Beams?

They blow away everything you listed in your post, and then some.

Definitely give them a go! You will be blown away by how effective they are. (You will need to do a G5 efficient weapon upgrade on both before the Vette will be able to run them properly)

Without that upgrade, you will be lucky to get 2 seconds of sustained fire before your max class PD is drained to zero.