Discuss it! Beams vs burst vs pulse

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Deleted member 110222

D
Oh yeah, time for another one of these threads! :D

Today, I thought I'd start a discussion on weapons. (Unicorn, you've heard of weapons?! Shocking, I know)

But yeah, I thought I'd talk about the three archetypes of thermal weapons in the game. Beam lasers, burst lasers, and pulse lasers.

Which do you favour, and why?

I use beams wherever possible. Reason being is because I like the shock-damage value they provide, given their higher DPS. They are well suited to self-defence, I find, where you only fight if you know you can win & want to make those fights as short as possible. If I can't use beams, then pulse it is. Nothing wrong with pulse.

Of course the best laser is, in fact, the Mining Lance, but that's a whole different discussion.
 

Hordriss

Hordriss
It depends entirely on the ship. For ships which require more careful power management (ie, Vulture), I'll use Pulse Lasers. Where power management isn't an issue, I will use Beam Lasers. Example, I have Beams on the small hardpoints on my Asp, together with multi-cannons on the mediums.

I've never used Burst Lasers.
 

MrWhippy

M
I don't think there is a single answer for this, they are all very situational. By that I mean it varies from ship to ship/loadout to loadout.

Beams are good for stripping shields but most ships can't handle the heat buildup/wep capacitor drain, which tends to make them only useable for a few secs. (I do like a single beam on my FAS, along with some kinetic weapons, can fire the beam all day long on that).

Burst are marginally easier on wep capacitor/heat buildup, for a bit less damage (can't say I've used them much).

Pulse seem to be the best all rounders, easy on the power drain and heat buildup, so you can usually keep the damage going for much longer. (So probably my go to laser in most situations).
 

tafkabb

T
I looked at burst on my FAS. As far as I can tell, they're worse than pulse in every way. Slightly lower penetration, slightly lower DPS, higher power usage, they drain the WEP under use (it recharges while firing the F2 pulse) and they cost more.
 

StiTch

StiTch
Boils down to this:

Pulse:
-High DPS if you're draining the capacitor as its damage to drain ratio is great
-Low short term DPS. Poor weapon for alpha damage or breaking through an enemy charging SCBs
-Respectable for subsystem targetting
-For a thermal weapon, negligible heat generation
-Only thermal weapon you're likely to be able to fit to mid-sized ships in a setup where you can fire indefinitely

Burst:
-Midway DPS if draining capacitor
-Midway actual DPS
-Pretty good for subsystem targetting
-Excellent when swapping to fixed to counter chaff
-Not often great over pulse lasers unless your capacitor has juice to spare but can't support beams

Beam:
-High heat generation
-Low DPS over capacitor drains as it eats capacity
-Very high short term DPS
-Fixed version does substantially more damage
-On bigger ships, can be used to melt smaller ships and shields in a single capacitor charge
-Excellent turreted weapon if capacitor can handle it
-Despite the weapon info, not great for subsystem targeting, as it tends to "wobble" around the targeted module
 
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Systolic

Systolic
I've certainly uses bursts from time to time, but generally on hardpoints that see infrequent use. My two best examples are the pre-buffed FDL and the Anaconda. The lower huge hardpoint placing on the FDL doesn't always make it easy to get it firing with the top hardpoints. Before the power plant buff, it also had a lot of heat issues...if i kept the nose up, only had one large beam or pulse firing. The former would cause me to overheat and the latter didn't do enough damage. A burst was a good fit, plus I could still use my top hardpoints and fairly often i could get in a good burst of damage from below.

On the Anaconda, i put burst on the small rear hardpoints. Small pulses are basically worthless, small beams in that location are just wasted power draw, and small multicannons are a waste because it's hard to get sustained fire from that location, again bursts fit very well here.

As said before, they are great for module sniping as well, especially on ships that don't have great a distributor. I run two large pulses and a large burst on my Python (the mediums are mining lasers) for just that reason.
 
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TwoWheeledToad

TwoWheeledToad
Two large Burst Lasers work well on the Clipper too. Beams wipe out the dizzy pretty quickly and can also cause overheating so I stopped using them. As soon as my dizzy does run dry I fire up the Multi's whilst the dizzy recharges then get back on the Bursts while the Multi's reload :D
 

Deekin Scalesinger

Deekin Scalesinger
I use dual beam lasers on my viper mk4. High damage but also high heat generation. At clise range devestating against shields.

When shields are down i pulverise my target with dual MC's
 

Comrade Error

Comrade Error
On the large points it will probably be pulse atleast if there are many large points. Mediums and smalls it will have to be burst lasers. Not much heat power I can handel and decent damage in a decent amount of time.

Beams tend to be too hot and too heavy for my distributor.
 

Arry

Arry
The major advantage of beams; is that shields can not recharge, while being hit. Burst and Pulse, offer a space between strikes, that give the shields, a recharge space. Under the constant attack of beams, they can only die. That said, power and heat, are the issues with beams.

A friend, has just got themselves a Vulture and has fitted Bursts and is very happy with the result and as has been said above; he mentioned, the bursts, really work well against modules.
 

StiTch

StiTch
Arry said:
The major advantage of beams; is that shields can not recharge, while being hit. Burst and Pulse, offer a space between strikes, that give the shields, a recharge space. Under the constant attack of beams, they can only die. That said, power and heat, are the issues with beams.
Click to expand...

Haven't seen any indication they actually stop shields charging. On the other hand unless we're talking one or two C1 beams against something with big shields, beams have high enough short term DPS that you're going to watch the shields melt anyway. Fixed beams are certainly awesome weapons for melting shields in a single capacitor charge.

If you can't do it in a single capacitor charge though, you're generally at a loss over pulses etc.

Edit: If you have seen an indication they actually stop shield charging, please cite reference below because I'd be interested.
 
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Comrade Error

Comrade Error
Arry said:
The major advantage of beams; is that shields can not recharge, while being hit. Burst and Pulse, offer a space between strikes, that give the shields, a recharge space. Under the constant attack of beams, they can only die. That said, power and heat, are the issues with beams.

A friend, has just got themselves a Vulture and has fitted Bursts and is very happy with the result and as has been said above; he mentioned, the bursts, really work well against modules.
Click to expand...

The rate that the beams discharge at and the recharge of the capacitor surely gives the ships shields more time to recharge than the pulse or burst lasers do while shooting.
 

StiTch

StiTch

Heftyz

H
Never used bursts to be honest, using beams for shield reduction and pulses and mc for the Swiss cheese effect ��
 

MikDaTv

M
I would like pulses and bursts more if they looked more star warsy. But they really just look like flashing lasers so I prefer beams to get that Star Trek phaser array feel.
 
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