I need weapons help please

[Punchdrunk]

So I've been playing on and off for a while, I mostly fly an icourier, an FDL, and a Conda. Not much of a trader/explorer, bounty hunting is my main activity.

For all of my ships, I seem to end up running Efficient Beam lasers (fixed) and gimbled overcharged Multicannons. This works very well.

However I want to try something different, and have some variety. I've tried railguns, cannons, plasma accelerators, but I'm obviously doing something wrong, as my time to kill is dramatically increasing.

Rails are fun to use, but the heat... makes more than 2 almost unuseable, and even 2 is pushing it. I think my time to kill is much higher, but frankly I overheat so much, i've given up... I would love to make these work, I've tried 2x g5 lightweight mod (way too hot). 2x sturdy (tolerable heat, but the weight - ugh and still hot).

Plasmas - maybe I'm just not that good, I can probably hit my target a bit more than 50% of the time, but the idea of aiming for a specific module on anything other than one of the 3 big ships is far out of my league. TTK again way lower than the MC.

Cannons - these just seem to do VERY low damage? Am I just missing the targeted module? I've tried fixed and gimbled, various engineering recipes including high velocity. With the gimbled, they literally seem to miss "easy" shots very regularly. With fixed, the damage seems aneamic?

Is this just a case of "get good"? FWIW I find Beams lasers (or at least some kind of laser) almost mandatory for small fighters, takes me forever to nail them with rails/plamas, is this normal?

From reading the forums, it seems that module sniping is essential for these weapon types, does this mean gimbled is the way to go? (and thus cannon?) Is the plan to kill the powerplant? Then what? use my lasers to burn the hull on a helpless opponent? Or is there another module to pop next to get a quick kill?

 

[Marklar_]

Efficient beams and multis are a good way to go, efficient and effective.

I'd suggest practicing with fixed weapons with low velocity for a while, it takes time to get good at it but you'll have more loadout flexibility.

 

[StiTch]

To be fair, the setup you are using to start with isn't particularly ineffective. Fixed beams are good shield strippers and gimballed MCs are perhaps the most effective simple hull grinder out there.

A lot of the other setups you've mentioned requires a) a bit of practice and b) the right engineering. Rails for instance are one of the king PvP weapons but require the most practice for any hitscan weapon, and you want to know what you're modding them for. For general use you will usually get a lot of mileage at a low price by using G1 long range; for just one sulphur they get extra range, they don't lose ANY damage at range until the target is completely out of range, and you can reroll so easily you can just keep going until you have a thermal load reduction secondary. This is basically mandatory in PvP for rails, so that as you suggest the heat doesn't kill ya. If you like hull tanking, try an armoured rail gun for moar HP/less heat, and you can hope for either thermal load or distributor draw decrease secondary.

Cannons incidentally benefit from the same G1 long range mod, but differently. The mod gives them extra projectile speed, which makes them much more efficient at connecting with subsystems, and can be easily re-rolled for a little extra damage.

PAs are probably some of the hardest weapons to use correctly, as when fired at any kind of range they hit slowly enough that they'll miss if the target changes course even a little. As such they require practice with your aim and positioning, and should be engineered according to how you choose to use them. Single PA? Try long range, as it increases the projectile speed similar to a cannon, and makes it easier to hit with them. Multiple PAs? Use several with efficient, and they'll have effectively no heat or distro concerns. PAs are also known for their ability to ignore resistances to some extent, and as NPCs don't really mod themselves, it's far less useful in PvE than in PvP where players are outright resisting 75% of damage you throw at them.

Probably the easiest way to increase your kill speed is a single railgun with feedback cascade, as negating SCB charges is incredibly useful. However, for an efficient PvE killing loadout, your best choice is probably G1 long range cannons and belting out their power plant. You need to stay relatively close, but you'd be amazed at how fast it'll drop opponents.

Either way if a beam and gimballed MCs work for you...then it works. Many people don't like to admit that a straight up gimballed MC or laser loadout is one of the more effective loadouts, PvP included. But tell me what ship you wanna try apply this to, and I'm happy to give a weapon loadout I think would net fast PvE kills.

And don't forget that if you wanna put the time in gitting gud with PAs/rails, you can apply the plasma slug effect and last several times longer than if you were using ammo on them.

 

[SupremeMorph]

Honestly mate, I don't think it's you. There's a few factors that make efficient beams one of the best weapons in the game, and I have trouble finding any other weapon that's any good as well

I think it's partially due to the fact that thermal damage is better than kinetic in general. Kinetic loses half its damage vs shields, while thermal loses about 1/6 effectiveness against hull. And once you fix the problems beams have with the efficient weapon upgrade, you're basically laughing. They have enough damage to seriously ruin a large ships day, but they have absolutely no issue hitting smaller targets as well

I have found a few other weapons I enjoy though, that you may wish to consider if looking for alternatives. I have a pair of small railguns modified with long range and plasma slug on my corvette's small mounts. They're very useful for giving the smalls some heavy damage and for a bit of sniping, while solving the issue they have of ammo problems. You can probably get similar results on your Annie
Plasmas, I only find useful on larger targets, even the C4 on my FDL. I recently changed that out for an OC incendiary multi, and it has made my FDL a hell of a lot more efficient at killing. But... I suppose if you're looking for challenge and excitement then there's few better feelings in combat than railing a full clip on a target from a C4 plas-accel. (mine's efficient with dazzle shell, works wonders)
Cannons, though... Try a couple OC high-yields. I've got a pair of C2s on my FDL and, well, they don't do a lot of hull damage compared to multis, but the internals of your target... They'll be paste
If you're a fan of gimbals, may I suggest a rapid-fire pulse turret with emissive munitions? They'll increase the angle tour weapons will move to target them, essentially making aiming easier

 

[IndigoWyrd]

Try Double Shot Frag cannons. Nothing but Double-shot Frag cannons, Incendiary Rounds, one Corrosive.
Or try Packhound missiles (you'll have to Power Play for them), all Overload modded.

Force-Shell modded cannons are good fun too.

Personally I've been having a hoot with PA's and Imperial Hammers. Working my way towards APA's to pair with them, but you have to be a good shot to hit with these, and I'm just an Ok shot right now, but getting better.

To combat Rail heat, I recommend Sturdy mounts (do them now, as Beta Engineering is lacking in this department for Rails, though this could change).
To combat Plasma heat, Efficient once again to the rescue.

The one Caveat with Plasma Slug is the 20% damage reduction - though in Beta it's only a 10% damage reduction.

 

[Punchdrunk]

Thanks for the quick replies guys. I guess I should explain my goals a bit.

1. more variety. Fixed Beams and Gimbled MCs works great, but using this on every ship is a bit tedious.

2. I love the way the icourier handles, but can't seem to do enough dps with it for anything tougher than a dropship. - If I try a gimbled cannon, and target the powerplant, do I have to be pretty close for the gimbles to be accurate enough?

I've tried a huge OC cannon on my FDL, just nowhere near as effective as a huge MC, perhaps I wasn't targetting the modules properly though, I'll give this another go
I also tried 4 medium cannons on the FDL, with a huge beam. This is where the "missing" feeling comes from, sometimes I could literally see 1 or 2 of the spread of 4 completely miss a close target (gimbled btw).

One last question, is the damage from cannons and railguns feeling weak simply because I'm missing the module? Maybe Multicannons are designed for the hull in general and cannons and rails are not?

IndigoWyrd - I tried the beta last night, and was very excited to find that a sturdy rail g5 mod exists and now only increases mass by 100% not the live 250%. Perfect! I though.
Sadly I only had enough mats to do 1 railgun, and the material trader only trades the kind of mats you get from other ships, no data, and no minerals. I'm not grinding materials in a beta, my gametime is limited as it is with a wife and child

I will try the icourier with that 1 engineered railgun, and 2 efficient beams and see if I can start hitting the powerplant reliably. Assuming I do, and the target ship is disabled, do I then just burn it down with the beams? Or target another module for the killing blow?

 

[Marklar_]

Maybe Multicannons are designed for the hull in general and cannons and rails are not?

Cannons and rails are devastating to hulls, when they hit. I used to use cannons before huge multis/beams were a thing, it's very satisfying to hit with a cannon and watch the ship go boom

 

[Troy_McClure]

....

Cannons - these just seem to do VERY low damage? Am I just missing the targeted module? I've tried fixed and gimbled, various engineering recipes including high velocity. With the gimbled, they literally seem to miss "easy" shots very regularly. With fixed, the damage seems anaemic?

Well what do you expect? There's no iron in cannon ammo!

 

[IndigoWyrd]

IndigoWyrd - I tried the beta last night, and was very excited to find that a sturdy rail g5 mod exists and now only increases mass by 100% not the live 250%. Perfect! I though.
Sadly I only had enough mats to do 1 railgun, and the material trader only trades the kind of mats you get from other ships, no data, and no minerals. I'm not grinding materials in a beta, my gametime is limited as it is with a wife and child

I will try the icourier with that 1 engineered railgun, and 2 efficient beams and see if I can start hitting the powerplant reliably. Assuming I do, and the target ship is disabled, do I then just burn it down with the beams? Or target another module for the killing blow?

There is a Data Trader and a Raw Materials Trader as well - Ross 240 or some variation thereof - use the GalMap filters to pinpoint them, they're all close to Wyrd. You can trade your Data and your Elements at these locations to save you some pain-farming.

For the iCourier... I have two I love to fly. One sports 3 Medium Force Shell Cannons. I seldom actually destroy a ship with them directly, but rather, take out ships by shooting them into rocks, since Force Shell pushes a ship. It's a riot!

The other sports a Medium Plasma and a pair of frag cannons. Plasma does wonders for taking down shields (if you're a good shot), and the frags shred hulls.
Plasma is Efficient with Phasing Sequence, Frags are Double Shot with Incendiary and Corrosive respectively.

iCourier is my second favorite smallship, right after the Dolphin.

 

[D.G.Cerberus]

Thanks for the quick replies guys. I guess I should explain my goals a bit.

1. more variety. Fixed Beams and Gimbled MCs works great, but using this on every ship is a bit tedious.

2. I love the way the icourier handles, but can't seem to do enough dps with it for anything tougher than a dropship. - If I try a gimbled cannon, and target the powerplant, do I have to be pretty close for the gimbles to be accurate enough?

I've tried a huge OC cannon on my FDL, just nowhere near as effective as a huge MC, perhaps I wasn't targetting the modules properly though, I'll give this another go
I also tried 4 medium cannons on the FDL, with a huge beam. This is where the "missing" feeling comes from, sometimes I could literally see 1 or 2 of the spread of 4 completely miss a close target (gimbled btw).

One last question, is the damage from cannons and railguns feeling weak simply because I'm missing the module? Maybe Multicannons are designed for the hull in general and cannons and rails are not?

IndigoWyrd - I tried the beta last night, and was very excited to find that a sturdy rail g5 mod exists and now only increases mass by 100% not the live 250%. Perfect! I though.
Sadly I only had enough mats to do 1 railgun, and the material trader only trades the kind of mats you get from other ships, no data, and no minerals. I'm not grinding materials in a beta, my gametime is limited as it is with a wife and child

I will try the icourier with that 1 engineered railgun, and 2 efficient beams and see if I can start hitting the powerplant reliably. Assuming I do, and the target ship is disabled, do I then just burn it down with the beams? Or target another module for the killing blow?

Even without engineering, try a Chieftain in Beta. "A" rate it. Couple of lasers in the class 3's - I used 1x Pulse and 1x burst then everything else rails. It can handle the heat no problem - rarely get over 85%.

And because of the placement and also the pitch rate of this ship its quite easy to land the shots too!

Edit: All the rails are on secondary fire and go simultaneously.

 

[StiTch]

Thanks for the quick replies guys. I guess I should explain my goals a bit.

1. more variety. Fixed Beams and Gimbled MCs works great, but using this on every ship is a bit tedious.

2. I love the way the icourier handles, but can't seem to do enough dps with it for anything tougher than a dropship. - If I try a gimbled cannon, and target the powerplant, do I have to be pretty close for the gimbles to be accurate enough?

I've tried a huge OC cannon on my FDL, just nowhere near as effective as a huge MC, perhaps I wasn't targetting the modules properly though, I'll give this another go
I also tried 4 medium cannons on the FDL, with a huge beam. This is where the "missing" feeling comes from, sometimes I could literally see 1 or 2 of the spread of 4 completely miss a close target (gimbled btw).

One last question, is the damage from cannons and railguns feeling weak simply because I'm missing the module? Maybe Multicannons are designed for the hull in general and cannons and rails are not?

IndigoWyrd - I tried the beta last night, and was very excited to find that a sturdy rail g5 mod exists and now only increases mass by 100% not the live 250%. Perfect! I though.
Sadly I only had enough mats to do 1 railgun, and the material trader only trades the kind of mats you get from other ships, no data, and no minerals. I'm not grinding materials in a beta, my gametime is limited as it is with a wife and child

I will try the icourier with that 1 engineered railgun, and 2 efficient beams and see if I can start hitting the powerplant reliably. Assuming I do, and the target ship is disabled, do I then just burn it down with the beams? Or target another module for the killing blow?

Cannons are better used on the lower class slots typically for subsytem targeting. Your main concern is, as you suggest, whether it hits the modules or not, and lower classes travel faster. A c4 cannon at long range will almost never hit the intended module. Your best bet is C2 cannons, g1 long range mod, fairly close range...and watching the PP of anything a decent size just melt.

The FDL is excellent for it on paper with a fixed beam on bottom but its handling profile means you want FA off skills to do so efficiently. A surprisingly effective cheaper cannon ship is the AspE, but failing that one fixed beam on the bottom of the iCourier and 2 cannons is something I used for a while.

 

[5miley]

Pick one type of weapon, either PAs or cannons
Equip weapons to your choice of ship
Only use that ship for the next week or two
Go to a RES (start off at low and work your way up to hazardous)
Practice, practice, practice

 

[Ashnak]

....
Sadly I only had enough mats to do 1 railgun, and the material trader only trades the kind of mats you get from other ships, no data, and no minerals.

The minerals trader is in Bolg, the data trader in Eranin, both a short jump off Wyrd.

As for your ships/weapons: if you like to brave PowerPlay to get new weapons, there is some stuff that looks worthwhile. I got myself some Pacifiers. Add a high level double shot mod (magazine upgrade to 6 rounds), then get up close and personal. Less than 500 meters distance, and you can land the full mag on anything larger than a FGS. Two to three full salvoes, and the hull of an NPC Python or Conda is gone.
Downside is, of course, that they only come in size 3, so not really suited for any of your ships. I have a Vulture set up in live, and the only downside is that I have to waste a lot of ammo to get the target shields down. Might try for some special effects engineering once 3.0 goes live. I also set up a Chieftain in the beta, and while that one by far isn't as sprightly as the Vulture (and has weaker shields), the fixed beams in the remaining hardpoints make up for that as shield strippers. In a non-representative first trial, the Chieftain nets about twice what I get per sortie in a RES, compared to the Vulture, before I'm out of ammo (1.2 compared to 0.5..0.8 Million).

My iCourier is set up for speed, so lightweight mods on everything, and inertial impact burst lasers for laughs. At ~800 m/s boost speed, any projectile weapon is too dangerous for myself (yes, apparently it's possible to hit yourself with your own ammo...), and any fast weapon with a punch just uses too much power and generates too much heat for the small (weight!) overcharged (thrusters) power plant. Yes, the three hardpoints on the iCourier have bad convergence - but with inertial impact bursts, that won't matter, as these have so much jitter you're not going to hit anything in any case. I also got a force shell cannon stored somewhere - good fun for fooling around in a wing, not really useful in combat unless you can punch a smaller fighter against some rocks.

 

[Spandexxx]

Long range modded PA's? I struggled to hit much with mine until I modded them for long range. They become a lot more effective then.

I also love my efficient beams but for some reason the MC's on my 'Conda don't seem to hurt things much. Bang on a huge and a large overcharged cannon however and they punch rather large holes in things. Love em.

 

[sidereal6]

I want to try something different

Try short-range blaster on your iCourier. You'll have to get in close, but a courier is able to do that. I have a fixed beam and two gimbled MCs, both with the short range mod (and the usual corrosive, etc). It's very different, you might like it.

On your FDL, try a fixed huge beam, and four fixed frags with double-shot. You strip the shields, then get in close and the frags are devastating.

I just finished watching this video:


[video=youtube;X11swEUxtCI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X11swEUxtCI[/video]

About a quad rail DBS. That looks like a lot of fun too.

 

[CMDR Corlas]

I adore plasma. If you practice, it's incredibly lethal. Rails are a lot of fun too.

If you want some quicker kills though, frags. All the frags. Just put frags everywhere.

Ships blow up so fast, it's hilarious. Especially if you have incendiary to pummel shields. And especially if you have at least one that's corrosive to mess up the hull.

/note, I say "at least one" because off-sync weapons make my eye twitch. Corrosive doesn't stack, and you only need one. But is also messes with your ammo count, and if it's in a hardpoint that's mirrored, you'll notice. Or at least I will. Drives me nuts. I like to put corrosive frags in my most-forward hardpoint, because then it hits first and the rest of the hardpoints get the full debuff effect.

 

[Mean_Mr_Grinch]

Pick one type of weapon, either PAs or cannons
Equip weapons to your choice of ship
Only use that ship for the next week or two
Go to a RES (start off at low and work your way up to hazardous)
Practice, practice, practice

What he said. ^
It's the only good way to learn and it will pay off in spades. If you need a crutch when you're learning throw on 1 gimballed mc with corrosive with the rest of your pa's. This gives you something to hit those pesky little eagles with when you get frustrated trying to hit them with your pa's. It also gives you the corrosive multiplier for your pa's. It makes taking on big ships a little easier. Once you get the hang of it, it's very gratifying. Be warned, going down this path will probably lead you to more pvp. It's kinda the next step after mastering fixed weapons.

 

[tomalus]

The problem with lasors is their damage dropoff is huge.You lose alot of dps when the target is above 600m away.Also I reckon most ai ships have alot of hull thermal resist.This is why I noticed veteran players use LONG RANGE mod instead of others.

Me I use all multicannons,its the most efficient way to kill things.When I run out of ammo I go to take a break anyway.

 

[Bob Lighthouse]

To be fair, the setup you are using to start with isn't particularly ineffective. Fixed beams are good shield strippers and gimballed MCs are perhaps the most effective simple hull grinder out there.

A lot of the other setups you've mentioned requires a) a bit of practice and b) the right engineering. Rails for instance are one of the king PvP weapons but require the most practice for any hitscan weapon, and you want to know what you're modding them for. For general use you will usually get a lot of mileage at a low price by using G1 long range; for just one sulphur they get extra range, they don't lose ANY damage at range until the target is completely out of range, and you can reroll so easily you can just keep going until you have a thermal load reduction secondary. This is basically mandatory in PvP for rails, so that as you suggest the heat doesn't kill ya. If you like hull tanking, try an armoured rail gun for moar HP/less heat, and you can hope for either thermal load or distributor draw decrease secondary.

Cannons incidentally benefit from the same G1 long range mod, but differently. The mod gives them extra projectile speed, which makes them much more efficient at connecting with subsystems, and can be easily re-rolled for a little extra damage.

PAs are probably some of the hardest weapons to use correctly, as when fired at any kind of range they hit slowly enough that they'll miss if the target changes course even a little. As such they require practice with your aim and positioning, and should be engineered according to how you choose to use them. Single PA? Try long range, as it increases the projectile speed similar to a cannon, and makes it easier to hit with them. Multiple PAs? Use several with efficient, and they'll have effectively no heat or distro concerns. PAs are also known for their ability to ignore resistances to some extent, and as NPCs don't really mod themselves, it's far less useful in PvE than in PvP where players are outright resisting 75% of damage you throw at them.

Probably the easiest way to increase your kill speed is a single railgun with feedback cascade, as negating SCB charges is incredibly useful. However, for an efficient PvE killing loadout, your best choice is probably G1 long range cannons and belting out their power plant. You need to stay relatively close, but you'd be amazed at how fast it'll drop opponents.

Either way if a beam and gimballed MCs work for you...then it works. Many people don't like to admit that a straight up gimballed MC or laser loadout is one of the more effective loadouts, PvP included. But tell me what ship you wanna try apply this to, and I'm happy to give a weapon loadout I think would net fast PvE kills.

And don't forget that if you wanna put the time in gitting gud with PAs/rails, you can apply the plasma slug effect and last several times longer than if you were using ammo on them.

Good stuff.
Great engineering advice in particular.

 

[Hooplah]

Thought that I would mention frag-cannons as very effective against large ships. Not so much with small ships as with that 'shotgun blast' effect many rounds miss. Rail guns have heat but a Python does OK with them. Three frag-cannons and two rail guns on a engineered maneuverable Python makes for a nice big ship killer.