Cannons, plasma accelerators or railguns?

For two class 2 slots, to take down bigger ships (ie. power plant targetting). What's your opinion?
 
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I actually just made a video today about plasma accelerators, running 2 of them on the Cobra. For me, they're not worth it, unless you're fighting large ships and can consistently hit the powerplant. The slow refire rate + slow projectile speed + fairly high heat means that for small ships its more trouble than its worth using the plasma accelerator. They are all right against larger ships but I still think other weapons are better. The one thing I couldn't find was an Anaconda to try them against though.
Out of the 3 options you've listed I would go with cannons, but the main setup I use is 2x gimballed beams and 2x gimballed multicannons and that works pretty well.


[video=youtube;FLs9_0S-MtA]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLs9_0S-MtA[/video]
 
Never tried the plasma, but I think the most dangerous and cheapest weapon is gimballed multicannon. Railgun is really too expensive - i remember the first time I reloaded multicannon and railgun I spent about 9000 creditd which 6500 ca. just for railgun ... try to combine beam laser and multicannon gimballed ;)
 
Oh, it is ... to knock down big ships it takes a certain long time while you could be hit and smashed .. with sub target you can break down shields, FSD and then complete the work !
Yes I know what sub-targetting is. Just never fired a couple of heatseekers at their power plant, usually just multi's.

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Dumbfire racks. Nothing even comes close. Highest DPS of all weapons.

But are they fun?
 
Multicannons for learners. Cannons for extra challenge & skill shots.

Yesterday, I hunted an Anaconda with an all Cannon setup. Taking down the shields took a couple of salvos. But after that, things were over pretty soon. I was not yet accurate enough to kill the power plant before the hull went out (need some more training here), but it was fun.

BTW, With all out cannons, half a pip to guns is enough and you can either turtle up (4 pips to systems) or keep some maneuverability. You cannot do this with Plasmas or Rails, because they need so much energy. Due to the low energy consumption Multicannons and Cannons are better partners for Lasers as well.
 
I have experimented a bit. Plasma accelerators are useless, they require more power, generate more heat, and the projectile moves at about the same pace as the cannon, while doing the same dmg. Also the projectile costs are ridiculous. Gimballed cannons are alright, though you wont hit anything smaller than an Asp with them in combat. I would use railguns but for their pathetic ammo capacity, I mean 30 shots, really? Come on.

I don't really like multicannons, they make an annoying sound on impact.
Also missiles are still bugged, 50% of them fly backwards.
 
I found railguns the most entertaining of those 3 by a huge margin, though as people here pointed out 30k for a full clip was too much expense for me at that stage of the game.
 
Tested both fixed Plasma and Cannons against conda's. While definitely fun to use, I wouldn't call them that effective. Poor range, slow projectile speed and the fact the lead indicator has a habit of suddenly disappearing every now and then with no rhyme or reason makes then rather ineffective in comparison to others, especially gimballed weapons. Still doable though.
 
I've spent a fair amount of time in my Eagle with twin beam lasers and a rail gun. I generally only use the rail gun after shields are down, and then I target something like the power plant, or drives with it. Rail gun does nice damage if you can track your target and aim it long enough for it to fire.
 
Cobra Mk 3: 2 Class 2 gimballed pulse lasers, 1 railgun and one missile bank.

Pulse lasers take care of shields and smaller ships.

The rail gun is used to make swiss cheese of power plants and drives on larger ships. The missiles are a back up if the NPC tries to run for hyperspace.

The worst feature of the rail gun is the slow charge making it difficult to hit fast moving targets. It could be improved with a charge on trigger pull fire on release mechanism.
 
I hope Frontier does a bit of tweaking on weapons.

Anyway with new ships coming, things will probably balance a bit!
 
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