Guardian Weapons - pro and cons please

[Bunkerkind Anni]

Hi there,
i kinda lost track of the weapon systems released over the last few month.

Can someone tell me the pro and cons of the three guardian weapon systems when fighting thargoids?
(or just correct me)


Guardian Gauss
- good hull damage, perfect for sniping hearts,
- hitscan weapon
- high heat output
- you have a fixed charge interval, so you have time your shots precisely

Guardian Plasma charger
- good hull damage, not so good for sniping hearts, but possible
- rather slow projectile, hard to aim
- lower charge does lower damage, but consumes same amount of ammo as a fully charged shot
- you can charge up and release the shot when YOU are ready (aka you can hold the shot as long as you want)

Guardian Shard Cannon
- good hull and subsystem damage
- average speed projectiles (not that bad due to short effective range)
- low ammo
- short range

And because i want to outfit my T10 for anti thargoid operations with multicrew in mind,
i wonder how to incorporate the multicrew-turret variants of the Plasma and Shard cannon,
facing the issue of FDEVs thoughtlessness when implementing that stupid auto-aim and no way to select subsystems

T10 has 4 large and 3 medium hardpoints relevant.
i need at least two flak during the learning process and i dislike fitting undersized weapons.
I wonder if i can kill interceptor without gauss in the mix

 

[Insane4un]

Guardian Plasma Charger have only 1km range falloff. Which is one of it's worst problems. In any case it suck to Gauss. Even 3C class.

Guardian Shard Cannon have ability to anihilate thargoid shields. But overall they still suck to Gauss. Even 3C class.

Guardian Gauss Cannon is fkn OP af.

But since you mention multicrew turret variants.. Plasma charger will be better. Your gunner can exert heart for your gauss. And you will have enougth time to kill the heart. Except.. if it will register the damage

 

[Phazon Xenomorph]

Keep in mind the rule for turrets still applies. A gimballed weapon is 70% of the DPS of a Fixed weapon, and a Turreted weapon is 70% of the damage of a gimballed. So if you insist on using the poor Type - 10 for Thargoid fighting, you're gonna struggle to kill even a Cyclops, to say nothing of Basilisk and Medusas, and that's WITH premium ammo (good luck keeping up on those materials though).

You're honestly better off using a different big ship.

 

[Bunkerkind Anni]

Keep in mind the rule for turrets still applies. A gimballed weapon is 70% of the DPS of a Fixed weapon, and a Turreted weapon is 70% of the damage of a gimballed. So if you insist on using the poor Type - 10 for Thargoid fighting, you're gonna struggle to kill even a Cyclops, to say nothing of Basilisk and Medusas, and that's WITH premium ammo (good luck keeping up on those materials though).

You're honestly better off using a different big ship.

i don't find the type10 to be that bad against cyclops.
my last try with AX weapons failed because of our aiming skills with the FLAK.

what other choices do i have? My corvette has simply not enough weapon slots for multicrew, and Anaconda is the ship i just don't want to buy.

what i forgot to ask? did FDEV fix the xeno scanner (or any utility slot scanner) in multicrew?

 

[Stigbob]

Plasma chargers can take out a scout in one shot if you land a salvo, two if you only have a couple of them. Once you get your eye in you can clear an instance of them very rapidly indeed.

 

[AlexMagnusson]

Guardian Plasma charger
- good hull damage, not so good for sniping hearts, but possible
- rather slow projectile, hard to aim
- lower charge does lower damage, but consumes same amount of ammo as a fully charged shot
- you can charge up and release the shot when YOU are ready (aka you can hold the shot as long as you want)

Another pro, if you use the charged up "fire when you want" round, you generate no thermal surge. This is huge and something I wish I'd known before.

 

[Dr. Nagi]

Most important stat on Guardian weapons is Armor Penetration. Since the higher interceptor variants have a ridiculously high armor rating, only the Gauss Cannons will really do any damage against them.

 

[Bunkerkind Anni]

urgh... bumping this after so long.
i think i should log in for once to find out what new stuff is out there to update this.

last things i had unlocked, had been the three Guardian SLF - and i remember them beeing pretty weak due to their inability to block phasing damage and corrosion

 

[Hooplah]

Many use Gauss for the hearts and Shards for the shields. Plasma needs to be up close and personal. Not good for a new Thargoid hunter trying to figure this all out.

 

[Kissamies]

I love the plasma, but the short falloff range really cripples it. It really should be 2 km like with regular plasma accelerators. Even 1.5 km would be workable. Shard is alright, but hopeless against the hardness of tougher interceptor. No wonder that the meta is just to pack 4 Gauss. Other thing to note that the auto-turret works with shards, but only at 500 meters. Plasma turrets need a human operator.

 

[KevinMillican]

Personally I like the Shards because they're also very effective against normal ships as well. They have a lower damage rating than frags, and can't be engineered, but despite this they can down a lot of NPCs quickly because of their tighter shot cone.