Cannons and lasers and beams oh my!

[Jefferson613]

So when I get back to the bubble I want to make a bounty hunting ship. That said I want to make it interesting in that I want to give the weapons fun special effects ie things like force shell for the cannon(s).

My questions are, do cannons have to be real big for the push effect and what other effects affect NPCs?

 

[Spaceman Si]

I have no idea, unfortunately, but

a: I am interested in the answer when someone comes up with it

and

b: Have some rep for the correct usage of "effect" and "affect"

 

[Krash]

So when I get back to the bubble I want to make a bounty hunting ship. That said I want to make it interesting in that I want to give the weapons fun special effects ie things like force shell for the cannon(s).

My questions are, do cannons have to be real big for the push effect and what other effects affect NPCs?

Any size causes a "push". Bigger cannon = bigger push. However, Force Shell has minimal affect on NPCs. Its optimal use is in PvP as it throws off hitscan aiming.

 

[Andovar]

it's my understanding that the force shell effect was heavily nerfed long ago. It also imparts a bunch of jitter, so good luck hitting with it.

I've always thought a cool build would be a a gunship with a combination of pulse, burst and beam lasers, all turreted.
No, it wouldn't be at all effective... but what a show!

 

[Krash]

it's my understanding that the force shell effect was heavily nerfed long ago. It also imparts a bunch of jitter, so good luck hitting with it.

I've always thought a cool build would be a a gunship with a combination of pulse, burst and beam lasers, all turreted.
No, it wouldn't be at all effective... but what a show!

Yes, its a gimbal jitter and the shot speed is so slow not worth the trouble. It would be nice to have something more powerful to counter the PA/rails meta.

 

[Jefferson613]

Well that sucks that force shell has been nerfed.... I figured it'd be fun to equip a ship with nothing but cannons and a laser and punt NPCs
around and eventually kill them

 

[Trollymctrollerson]

I have 2 medium force shell cannons on my viperiv. They are fixed and I gave them LR mod. With the massive projectile speed boost from LR and the minor velocity reduction from force shell, they shoot around ~1600m/s. They do knock ships around pretty good but NPCs are aim bots so it wont help much with them. It does work decent on FA off players. The lighter their ship the better it works.

 

[Jefferson613]

I have 2 medium force shell cannons on my viperiv. They are fixed and I gave them LR mod. With the massive projectile speed boost from LR and the minor velocity reduction from force shell, they shoot around ~1600m/s. They do knock ships around pretty good but NPCs are aim bots so it wont help much with them. It does work decent on FA off players. The lighter their ship the better it works.

When they knock around an NPC does it spin the ship or does it just push away in the direction it was fired from?

Also shouldn't pvpers use faoff a lot to keep ToT high?

 

[Vedmo]

So when I get back to the bubble I want to make a bounty hunting ship. That said I want to make it interesting in that I want to give the weapons fun special effects ie things like force shell for the cannon(s).

My questions are, do cannons have to be real big for the push effect and what other effects affect NPCs?

Quirky builds like you're thinking of can he a lot of fun. Cannons (especially with jitter) are close range weapons as has been said, so for lasers I'd suggest even more jitter! The oft ignored inertial impact on some short range blaster bursts are a sporadic light show that won't hit anything you aren't hugging, but in a nimble ship can really pack an oversized punch.

 

[Trollymctrollerson]

The effect depends on where you impact the ship. A direct hit to center of mass mostly just pushes the target but if you hit a wing or the front from an angle, it can cause it to spin. Ships with flight assist off are more vulnerable to the spinning because the ships computer doesn't try to counter the spin automatically like with it on. Flight assist off has some benefits for staying on target but force shell cannons can complicate their aiming. An experienced player will adapt pretty fast but it is effective on less experienced players.

 

[pzykozomatik]

Most special effects that directly affect NPCs usually aren't worth the downsides. The only really useful ones for most scenarios are imho feedback cascade for railguns and drag munitions for missile type weapons, and maybe scramble spectrum pulses (although it's hard to tell how much impact they actually have on the enemy's performance). In most other cases I prefer to use effects that increase my DPS or have other benefits for my ship's performance, like corrosive and auto-loader for projectiles, thermal vent beams (those affect NPCs too, but the way bigger advantage concerns your own ship), or in a wing the regeneration/concordant shield heals.

 

[Limoncello Lizard]

Well that sucks that force shell has been nerfed.... I figured it'd be fun to equip a ship with nothing but cannons and a laser and punt NPCs
around and eventually kill them

Yeah.

I built a T-10 with all G5 force shell cannon turrets, thinking it would be fun to punt NPCs around. It was a huge disappointment. It was so bad, I didn't even bother storing them.

 

[Conch]

Ive got forceshells with g5OC, the trick is to keep hitting them.. after a few hits the ship cant change vector anymore.

 

[Jefferson613]

Ive got forceshells with g5OC, the trick is to keep hitting them.. after a few hits the ship cant change vector anymore.

How often do you have to keep hitting something for that to happen? Do you have your cannons on different fire groups?

 

[Sup3rfluiD]

Fixed c2 force canons are a perfect compliment to standard speed pa's .
I use them on quite a few builds to very good effect.
Plus npc ships are pathetically non competitive so they work just fine for pve and PvP.

 

[Conch]

How often do you have to keep hitting something for that to happen? Do you have your cannons on different fire groups?

big ships like a conda, 4 hits i think.. most of them die by astroids.

but the cannons dont stack, so its usefull to put them on differant buttons.

 

[Conch]

Fixed c2 force canons are a perfect compliment to standard speed pa's .
I use them on quite a few builds to very good effect.
Plus npc ships are pathetically non competitive so they work just fine for pve and PvP.

this!!

with forceshells debuff to shotspeed, making size 2 cannons have 876ms shotspeed, and stock PA is 875ms.

 

[bladebss]

Ok i have a thing for cannons. I use cannon vipers and they are great!
Force shell does not introduce jitter. It reduces the shot speed and rate of fire a little.

If you have class 1 cannons with force shell they go 1000ms
A class 2 cannon with out force shell goes 1050ms. So if you use foce shell on the smalls and dispersal field and thermal cascade on the mediums your shot speed will close enough to hit with both, most of the time.
Of you have a large hard point the shot speed is 960 so with the small force shells you are even closer to matching the speed.

A medium force shell has the same shot speed as plasma witch can be handy too.

With cannons, overcharged is your friend. But long range can be usefull some times, especially in a less agile ship.

2 small overcharged force shell cannons will flip anything smaller than an asp around like a butterfly in a storm. Larger ships will be pushed back and just shake a little. However, if you are in an asteroid field this can be super effective.

Anacondas and the like, dont have sufficient thrusters to over come the force from 2 small OC cannons and will go backwards very fast if you keep hitting them.. like faster than you might be able to keep up with.

In wing assassination missions, or indeed if you have competition for a kill. You can lead the target ship off out of the way buy pushing them with the cannons, you need a fast ship like a viper to keep up with them but you can effectively seperate the leader from the pack and not have to tank the combined fire power of the whole wing.

On my viper i go eather full OC cannons, or 2small cannons and one medium and then a medium extended mag cascade rail for those duracell pythons and alike and for some hit scan if i cant hit with the cannons at the time to help sustain some dps.

It has been both fun and very effective to do this. I have faught and killed a wing of 2 elite corvettes in a viper mkiv.

In a res site the only problam is running out of ammo. Basic synth is cheap though.

 

[Jefferson613]

https://s.orbis.zone/1lhn

Is what I'm thinking of doing for the lulz

 

[IndigoWyrd]

So when I get back to the bubble I want to make a bounty hunting ship. That said I want to make it interesting in that I want to give the weapons fun special effects ie things like force shell for the cannon(s).

My questions are, do cannons have to be real big for the push effect and what other effects affect NPCs?

Any size cannon will work for Force Shell, but the most entertaining effects are had against ships no larger than an Eagle. Using a pair of small FS cannons on a Dolphin I’ve spun eagles like coins, until they’ve broken, laughing maniaclly the whole time.