I seem to be getting better at keeping my guns on target for extended duration. Question about PvE.

[Deleted member 110222]

I have a pair of fixed multicannons on my Cobra, medium hard points.

I've been doing a lot of combat the past few days, and here's my complaint about the guns:

The constant need to reload.

See, my brig is now agile. Like, really agile. Maxed out DD5 with drag does that to an already agile ship like a Cobra. So here's my question.

For PvE, would you consider the auto-loader experimental "worth it"?

Many thanks.

 

[biohazard15]

Autoloader TOTALLY worth it. I have it on each multicannon, except single C3 on my Vulture and single C4 on my FDL - these have Corrosive. Even Corvette got Autoloaders on both of its C4 MCs (who needs corrosive when you have five long-range beams?).

 

[XW_Ziggy]

Autoloader's reload rate was improved for 3.0 as well.

 

[biohazard15]

Autoloader's reload rate was improved for 3.0 as well.

It was great even before 3.0. Now it's absolutely impossible to empty the clip in real combat. It's like clips have been changed to 2000-round ammo belt.

 

[Deleted member 110222]

Autoloader's reload rate was improved for 3.0 as well.

Oh that's jolly good. Hmm... Might be worth gathering materials today then.

 

[CMDR Ahab]

Autoloader is the best special effect on a multi-cannon in my opinion. The passive improvement they give to DPS alone makes them worth it.

 

[XW_Ziggy]

Sustained DPS.
Just remember that ammo clip-management with other MC mods is all part of the skill and combat decisions you have to make too. If you're reloading there are other things you can (and should) be doing with your WEP pips.

And - as awesome as Autoloader is, the corrosive debuff is still a flat 25% damage increase to hull for all your weapons so swapping one MC to corrosive means that your other three hardpoints are getting a 25% buff - and that is a better tradeoff against everything except the hardiest shield tanks spamming SCBs

It's not my place to dictate how you play, but if I was running fixed MCs, I'd definitely be running an all-MC build so that all projectiles were leading my target by the same amount. I can't used fixed MC and fixed lasers at the same time because that requires me to aim in two places at once on anything other than a static target (or a foolish facetanking scenario), so with that in mind I would run 2xC2 and 1xC1 overcharged autoloading MCs, and put a high-capacity corrosive MC on the other hardpoint.

 

[biohazard15]

Sustained DPS.
Just remember that ammo clip-management with other MC mods is all part of the skill and combat decisions you have to make too. If you're reloading there are other things you can (and should) be doing with your WEP pips.

And as awesome as Autoloader is, the corrosive debuff is still a flat 25% damage increase to hull for all your weapons (and wingmates' weapons too), so you'd be missing a lot of potential dps by completely ignoring it; You only need corrosive on one MC to get the full effect.

Corrosive works best on C4 MC, since you can fire single-shot debuff each five seconds, and thus conserving ammo. Works great on Conda and FDL. Not so good at smaller MCs, since you can't apply it instantly.

What Autoloader really excels at is eliminating the curse of MC-based builds: non-synchronized reloads. In 2.4, even a small ROF secondary on one MC, or difference in clip size for overcharged could lead to one gun expending its clip before the other(s). You had a choice then: either continue to fire (with reduced DPS and even more non-sychronized reloads later), or manage the guns by expending (wasting) ammo to force reload. It is much less pronounced on 3.0's fixed results, but still might be problematic. Autoloader eliminates this problem.

 

[XW_Ziggy]

Corrosive works best on C4 MC, since you can fire single-shot debuff each five seconds, and thus conserving ammo. Works great on Conda and FDL. Not so good at smaller MCs, since you can't apply it instantly.

Yes, I prefer C4 MC for the instant single fire for the exact reason you say - and it's why on a cobra I would put it on the C1 because that has the shortest spin-up time (it's not instant but it's damn quick compared to C2 and C3 MCs!). My smallest serious combat-ready ship is the FdL so I don't have that problem but I'm engineering a Chieftain and I'm thinking that one of the C1's is going to have to be a corrosive MC. Since the C1 MC's damage is so trivial anyway, I don't mind losing the overcharged mod to give me high-capacity. It means I can just add the corrosive MC to the primary fire group and not worry about ammo conservation at all.