Is there a trick to using fixed weapons?

[RyuStaar]

And anyone just saying "practice" without any more tips - shame on you, that's not far of just saying "Git Gud"

Not really, some things literally come down to experience. These guys can serenade you all day about how to do it but at the end of the day , you are not going to get better at it by not doing it. This seems to be one of those things you have to DO, a LOT of, to get good at. Practice is a valid tip

 

[The Nude Wizard]

One tip I don’t think has been mentioned is if you want to slowly gain confidence with fixed aiming while still having gimballed weapons, just remember to deselect the target when they chaff and your weapons then become “fixed” and you can continue to do damage, you won’t get the damage bonus of them being fixed weapons obviously but it’s one way to ease yourself into practicing without giving up the safety net of your gimballed weapons completely which will work as normal once you re-target them when their chaff runs out.

 

[Felix DiCestria]

 

[Oytis57]

Stick to their asses and unleash the Dogs of War.

 

[Llandrenel]

Yes, there is. It's called aiming.

To be fair, fixed weapons can be a little hard to get right, especially when the opponent is quick. But once you get good (and no, I'm not yet either) Then fixed weapons will do a substantially larger amount of damage than gimballed or turreted. As while the gimballed can often get you more time on target, they get messed up by chaff and become more than useless until it stops.

 

[Rat Catcher]

Yes, there is. It's called aiming...

... and anticipation of where the target will be when the projectiles (hopefully) hit!

The suggestion of hybrid weapons loadout is a great one, gimballed and fixed weapons to practise with and improve, but with the security blanket of gimbals in the early days.

 

[Llandrenel]

... and anticipation of where the target will be when the projectiles (hopefully) hit!

Hmm, yes, and no. The leading sights show you where you need to be shooting to hit the selected target. For me I use Fixed beam lasers (no lag point at the target and shoot) and gimballed multicannons/canons. Seems to work pretty well most of the time. Except when the game forgets to tell me I'll be jumping into a battle 5 times above my rank with very little engineering done yet cause I just don't have the parts, or in some cases, the engineers, to do it.

 

[efoo]

I think the only trick with fixed weapons is to improve your piloting skill.
I'm a mediocre pilot so I'm staying with gimballed weapons

 

[Slange Lands]

I am 55 and used to completely suck with fixed weapons. Now I don't. Here is what I did.

There are two major issues.
1. Range Control
2. Tracking with your eyes.

Range Control
Range Control is a rather large topic and is different based on fa off or fa on usage. Range control is very important because of damage fall off distance. In addition, the most powerful weapons (and fun!) in game are often fixed and short range. The short range blaster rail gun is meta but has a 1 km fall off. Staying within 1km of a high ranked npc Viper 3, is no mean feat.

Tracking

Plasma Accelerators
Multicannons and PAs reticles share the same vector, however the PA reticle is much further out. I use the MC reticle to train my eye to locate the PA reticle. The PA reticle is very deceiving, it takes experience to know if your ship is properly aligned to connect. In general, the closer you are to the target ship, the closer the reticles will be to the target making tracking and successful shots easier. Hence why range control is key.

I used a 4 medium gimballed OC MultiCannon plus one Huge Efficient PA FDL as my " learning to aim PAs" ship. I did hundreds of Czs. I made sure I connected with the huge PA Every. Single. Time. Then, I went to a four PA build with one medium Mc build.

[Edit] Of course one could go immediately mostly PAs and one MC, but the TTK will be much much longer at first. Decreasing frustration in any learning situation is a good thing.