Burst vs Beam vs Pulse

[Corium]

Burst are good for sustainable on highly maneuverable ships, especially gimballed.

Pulse are good as Fixed weapons as you don't receive the drop in damage, as long as you can keep hitting the target. These do no generate as much heat.

Beam, you have to either be mindful of your trigger finger and get good sustained bursts in at opportune times OR, do what I do...


I use Beam lasers primarily for the larger ships as it's easier to hit. I don't use Gimballed due to the damage reduction. Against an Anny I can give the ship a clean sweep across multiple modules and cause stupid amounts of damage from a single laser which in turn drops the overall hull value of the ship for 20-25% per pass as long as I don't make identical passes.


Lasers are good vs bigger ships as they can be used to knock modules offline with a well places second long burst of energy... yes they heat up quick, but if you use something like multicannons or cannons ( My viper has 2x C2 Cannons 1x C4 Cannon and 1x C4 Beam laser) then the heat issue only comes into play when you're actually firing the laser.



I eat annys day in and day out with a beam laser. Get on their ass, cannon their engines, then strafe the top and bottom with laser runs + cannon pot shots.

 

[adflet]

I have 1x c2 beam laser on my Cobra and use it when I'm coming across a ship to line up my cannons and multicannon. Question - do beam lasers do more damage at any point of the cycle? Eg do they emit more power at a certain point and therefore do more damage?

 

[Schlachtenlenker]

I use the Beam-Laser to stripped down the Shield (plus Cannon) and than only C3 G Multicannon for the Hull.
No waste of Hardpoints for Missle or anything else.

 

[Soda Popinski]

I'm not very good at this yet, but I have 1 C2 beam laser to act as a "tracer round" for by burst lasers. If I can keep that beam on target, I know my bursts will also hit. Fixed weapons, obviously.

 

[DaveB]

Pulse lasers: semi-auto.
Burst lasers: 3-round burst.
Beam lasers: rock&roll full-auto.

Just as with RL projectile weapons, you adjust your trigger discipline based on where you have your selector.

The first two pretty much manage your trigger for you. Aim/shoot/aim/shoot/repeat.

With beam lasers you have to do as you would with a RL machine gun. Remember to let off the trigger after a short burst - simply hold it down and you'll be wasting much of your laser output and heat production on empty space. Zzzzap/retarget/zzzap/retarget....if that ruby hose of death isn't doing damage *right now* get off the trigger.