Cannons

[13A]

At one point, I had all cannons on my Federal Gunship, the Fullmetal Monitor. That was pretty fun too.

Ooooh, I've wondered about a full cannon FGS, rather than the normal multi build. I may have to try it

There was a period when the game was new that an all-cannon Viper was lethal, until we started getting shield boosters and SCB

 

[Krieger]

Lagging vs leading, or vice-versa, I don't recall. The default mode is where you aim at the reticle to hit the target, the alternative mode, which I find useful for cannons, is where the reticle shows where the cannons will hit, so you steer the ship to put that reticle on the ship / subsystem you're aiming at.

In alternate mode (lagging) the pipper will disappear behind the cockpit instrument panel guite often because lead angles become quite large. Having played a lot of flightsims in the past I initially chose lagging mode but I switched to leading after a few fights.

 

[znôrt]

'leading' gives away more information about your target movement. a tiny change in yaw, pitch will result in a noticeable response in the reticule. in 'lagging' mode your reticule is (ideally) close to the target so the the effect ins't amplified, and actually only shows relative speed. plus, 'leading' points naturally to the interception path, which imo is an important visual area to focus on, wether i'm intercepting or not. lagging points nowhere, it's just you matching the reticule on a moving target. leading all the way for me.

 

[Mohrgan]

I used cannon for a long while. I was attracted to the higher round count of Frags, but cannon are perfect for sniping modules. Especially the Power Plant. Once they changed the way PPs respond to damage, I finally went to frags. It's been good. The moral of this post? Try Frags, man.

 

[znôrt]

also, c'mon, what's not to like about CANNONS??!

 

[znôrt]

Try Frags, man.

ermm ...

Spoiler

 

[Genoscythe]

A long range cannon with dispersal field can make gimbals and turrets go nuts, there's also fun builds for module wrecking or pushing enemies around, but generally for DPS you might want to use MCs.

 

[Hossi]

Does anyone use cannons? I put two on my Dolphin for fun. Turrets. I figure they can shoot backwards while I flee.

What do people find them useful for?

I have one cannon on one of my ships (out of... uhh... maybe 50). A huge gimbaled G5 overcharged.
I use it on my CZ-Conda to take out big targets. After the shields drop, and after I soften it up with a corrosive MC and then, if the target is in a good position and a hit is assured, then I fire the cannon. Has quite a punch, if it hits. And I mostly hit. And since I use it very selective, I don't have problems with the ammo.
I never got the idea of 'shoot backwars while I flee' though. You can't charge your fsd while your hardpoints are deployed. So you can't shoot while you flee.

 

[Dirtbird]

I use cannons. I have a three gimballed cannon, two fixed beam Krait. For PvE encounters, it's pretty much unstoppable and there's enough ammo to do two or three conflict zones. I drop the shields with the beams and then kill shield generators and power plants with the cannons, with added DPS from the beams while the cannons are reloading.

Firing cannons needs a bigger boom. They currently sound like the ship is sneezing violently.

 

[Stealthie]

Unengineered they can be quite effective too, if you use a lot of them together.

A couple of people have mentioned similar things and, personally, I tend to think it's more wishful thinking than a realistic option.

First time I ever bought an Annie I tried sticking a heap of cannons on it with the idea that it'd be like Napoleonic warships in space, and I'd be delivering devastating broadsides to any ship foolish enough to come near me.

Nope.

There are a number of problems with the concept.
Firstly, they're just not powerful enough to allow you to do this.
Secondly, they don't have enough ammo to allow you to use them repeatedly on a combat ship.
Thirdly, if you fit enough cannons to be useful, you'll have no hardpoints available for other weapons.
Fourthly, related to all the above, defensively you're better off concentrating on escape instead of wasting time attempting to deal insignificant damage to an attacker.

Personally, I've come to think of cannons as something of a "sniper rifle" for ED ships.
Put a pair of 'em on something like an FdL, along with, say, a C4 laser and a pair of frag's and you've got a ship that can break shields easily, do lots of damage close-up and snipe individual modules (such as thrusters) if the opportunity arises.
What's more, if you use cannons like this, you don't burn through the ammunition in a couple of minutes.

If I'm honest, I prefer to use rails in that role but I've fitted cannons to both my FdL and my Mamba in place of rails and they definitely do a similar job.
I tend to think rails do it better but if you want a gimballed weapon to do that job, it might be worth giving cannons a go.

 

[Old Duck]

A long range cannon with dispersal field can make gimbals and turrets go nuts, there's also fun builds for module wrecking or pushing enemies around, but generally for DPS you might want to use MCs.

Depends on the ships you're going after. IIRC cannons are superior to MCs against bigger ships due to their higher piercing and hull breach chance.

 

[Genoscythe]

Depends on the ships you're going after. IIRC cannons are superior to MCs against bigger ships due to their higher piercing and hull breach chance.

This is true for c2 or c1 cannons, but c3 MCs already have a solid 54 piercing and you can weigh this off on MCs with corrosive ammo (even a c1 is enough there), effectively increasing all damage you deal. This paired with the slightly better DPS and ammo eficiency (MCs can deal 2x the damage before having to reload!) still makes MCs a go-to choice for most players.

 

[bladebss]

Cannon ammo is actualy the same as multi cannons in terms of damage potential. Untill you get to huge and large.

A small cannon does 2835 damage before it runs out of ammo.

A small multicannon does 2420 damage before it runs out of ammo.

But a huge multi does 20,350 damage before it runs out.

A huge cannon only does 10,470.

Now if you miss with a cannon shell you are loosing more damage per miss, and with the slower shot speed and penalty for using gimbals with cannons you are more likely to miss. This i think is what leeds to the feeling that they dont have enough ammo.(aside from insaine hit point inflation)

I think huge and large cannons should do more damage to make them equal in potential to multis of the same size, especialy as the larger cannons shots travel even slower than small and mediums, or, they should have more ammo to compensate

Heres a list of damage potential for fixed cannons vs multis.

Size............Cannons.............Multi

Small........ 2835...................2420
Medium.....4636.8................4620
Large .........7005.6................8580
Huge..........10470.6..............20350

I mean frags do 3129,6551,10028 small medium and large. And have higer dps. So they can compete with multis in terms of potential and dps for the cost of range as well as having corosive and incendiary options like multis too.

Cannons have been on an odd place for some time.. infact prety much since the cannon viper nerf.

They are good but only some times, on some ships and in some situations.

I love cannons but i do often feel like i would be better off with multis or frags.

 

[Bloodsign]

A couple of people have mentioned similar things and, personally, I tend to think it's more wishful thinking than a realistic option.

First time I ever bought an Annie I tried sticking a heap of cannons on it with the idea that it'd be like Napoleonic warships in space, and I'd be delivering devastating broadsides to any ship foolish enough to come near me.

Nope.

There are a number of problems with the concept.
Firstly, they're just not powerful enough to allow you to do this.
Secondly, they don't have enough ammo to allow you to use them repeatedly on a combat ship.
Thirdly, if you fit enough cannons to be useful, you'll have no hardpoints available for other weapons.
Fourthly, related to all the above, defensively you're better off concentrating on escape instead of wasting time attempting to deal insignificant damage to an attacker.

Personally, I've come to think of cannons as something of a "sniper rifle" for ED ships.
Put a pair of 'em on something like an FdL, along with, say, a C4 laser and a pair of frag's and you've got a ship that can break shields easily, do lots of damage close-up and snipe individual modules (such as thrusters) if the opportunity arises.
What's more, if you use cannons like this, you don't burn through the ammunition in a couple of minutes.

If I'm honest, I prefer to use rails in that role but I've fitted cannons to both my FdL and my Mamba in place of rails and they definitely do a similar job.
I tend to think rails do it better but if you want a gimballed weapon to do that job, it might be worth giving cannons a go.

Great thoughts! You are correct that cannons don't work well on every ship; in my experience you need a ship with a good agility or you'll never bring those cannons to bear. My Vulture is great at this, but my Gunship was a good deal slower; I don't think I'd try cannons on anything less agile than the Gunship. I can see how an Anaconda cannon build would be pure masochism! Maybe a Corvette might work...

This is true for c2 or c1 cannons, but c3 MCs already have a solid 54 piercing and you can weigh this off on MCs with corrosive ammo (even a c1 is enough there), effectively increasing all damage you deal. This paired with the slightly better DPS and ammo eficiency (MCs can deal 2x the damage before having to reload!) still makes MCs a go-to choice for most players.

MCs have the added benefit of lower risk too. You can spray away, all day, no need to pray, some of your shots will land. With cannons a miss is costly, you have to be quick enough on the trigger to keep up a solid barrage, but slow enough on the trigger to land every shot if you want to be effective.

I will say that it is incredibly satisfying to land a cannon volley.

The perfect change to balance cannons would be a +50% range buff, and faster shot speed.

 

[Chaparral]

Cannon ammo is actualy the same as multi cannons in terms of damage potential. Untill you get to huge and large.

A small cannon does 2835 damage before it runs out of ammo.

A small multicannon does 2420 damage before it runs out of ammo.

But a huge multi does 20,350 damage before it runs out.

A huge cannon only does 10,470.

Now if you miss with a cannon shell you are loosing more damage per miss, and with the slower shot speed and penalty for using gimbals with cannons you are more likely to miss. This i think is what leeds to the feeling that they dont have enough ammo.(aside from insaine hit point inflation)

I think huge and large cannons should do more damage to make them equal in potential to multis of the same size, especialy as the larger cannons shots travel even slower than small and mediums, or, they should have more ammo to compensate

Heres a list of damage potential for fixed cannons vs multis.

Size............Cannons.............Multi

Small........ 2835...................2420
Medium.....4636.8................4620
Large .........7005.6................8580
Huge..........10470.6..............20350

I mean frags do 3129,6551,10028 small medium and large. And have higer dps. So they can compete with multis in terms of potential and dps for the cost of range as well as having corosive and incendiary options like multis too.

Cannons have been on an odd place for some time.. infact prety much since the cannon viper nerf.

They are good but only some times, on some ships and in some situations.

I love cannons but i do often feel like i would be better off with multis or frags.

What is your opinion of Shock Cannons?

 

[bladebss]

What is your opinion of Shock Cannons?

They heat up too much and they dont have enough ammo.

A medium shock cannon can do 3328 damage before reloading about the same as a rail gun. Better off with eather vanilla cannons or frags. The jitter increase from rapid fire of shock cannons along with the heat makes there effective dps much lower than the stats would sugest.

Now if we could engeneer them some of those problems might go away and they could be usefull some times but i have tested the medium fixed option and i quickly realised they sucked! Lol

 

[Krieger]

<snip>
I don't think I'd try cannons on anything less agile than the Gunship. I can see how an Anaconda cannon build would be pure masochism! Maybe a Corvette might work...
<sni[>

No worries they work fine. I run an Anaconda (1 huge, 1 large) and a Corvette (2 huge) with G5 overcharged cannons complemented with G5 efficient plasmas or beams to help drop shields. Both ships are agile enough for aiming cannons and they make short work of medium and large ships (PvE). Small agile ships can be a menace but an SLF helps a lot.

 

[13A]

What is your opinion of Shock Cannons?

I wouldn't use them on a pure combat ship due to the heat and low ammo; but I have them on my mission runner Krait II to deal with interdictions and they're good. C2 Beams to help with the shields and a couple of volleys from 3x C3 shocks tends to do the trick

 

[Old Duck]

The perfect change to balance cannons would be a +50% range buff, and faster shot speed.

Irony is that WWII battleship cannons have way greater range and perhaps even shot speed in gravity and atmosphere than ED cannons do in space. Range in ED should not be about bullets and shells magically disappearing, but the accuracy of the servos (even fixed weapons have microservos that are incredibly accurate when they lock on).