Is there any reason to not use full multicannons loadouts on combat ships?

[Suteksio]

I'm talking about PvE, where module sniping is not needed.

Let's take a combat ship like the gunship or the Fer-de-Lance. I've tried several weapon loadouts on those ships and by far the most destructive weapons are multicannons. I've tried full lasers, a mix of lasers and kinetic weapons, special weapons like plasmas or rails, but nothing comes close to how fast ships get destroyed when using multicannons.

Sure, they are ammo weapons and you can't stay in a RES or CZ for very long, and the shields take a while to drop with multicannons, but when the shields are down you can take out big and medium ships in seconds. Small ships get insta-melted.

I'd love to use more weapons on my ships, but I don't really find a reason to drop the multis. Maybe I'm missing something or when I use other weapons I don't engineer them properly to get the higher DPS they potentially have.

Give advice please.

Don't get me wrong, I don't want to use the "I win" ship all the time, but on High intensity CZ's you need to kill very fast if you are outnumbered or you won't make it alive, and for that task the MC's dominate the playfield.

I also love crazy loadouts, specially on small ships, and I'd love to build a true missile boat and a ship similar to those Cluster Flak Arrays and Flak Artillery Arrays builds on X3.

 

[Pyrotiger]

I agree with you. Best thing is just to have the Res or Cz near the station.

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

I use a mix. It's not the most effective, but it means i can have fun.

My Anaconda has just two large multicannons, 2 snall missile launchers, 2 Packhounds, and 2(1 huge,1 large) pulse laser turrets.
All with seemingly random special effects in them. Lol

Effective?
No.

Fun? Yes!

 

[Tall_Toot]

If they ever bother to make multicannons heat up/ suffer carbon build-up a bit more realistically (I've seized an L85A2 solid with 24 clips of continuous burst/ single shot ), then you'd have a reason to look elsewhere.

Otherwise, I'd have to agree

 

[Harley Quinn]

I like multis and have them on most of my ships, but my vulture is efficient burst lasers for unlimited time on target with no ammo issues and combat focused ships usually have some lasers for shield takedown.

For exploration I tend to carry lightweight pulse as they are mainly a just in case option.

Your multis will rip a hull apart, but may have problems with good shielding where energy weapons are generally better.

 

[Suteksio]

I use a mix. It's not the most effective, but it means i can have fun.

My Anaconda has just two large multicannons, 2 snall missile launchers, 2 Packhounds, and 2(1 huge,1 large) pulse laser turrets.
All with seemingly random special effects in them. Lol

Effective?
No.

Fun? Yes!

Don't get me wrong, I don't want to use the "I win" ship all the time, but on High intensity CZ's you need to kill very fast if you are outnumbered or you won't make it alive, and for that task the MC's dominate the playfield.

I also love crazy loadouts, specially on small ships, and I'd love to build a true missile boat and a ship similar to those Cluster Flak Arrays and Flak Artillery Arrays builds on X3.

 

[StiTch]

Er.

Lazors.

If you want to farm a spot and not move back to station all day.

That's about it.

 

[Suteksio]

Er.

Lazors.

If you want to farm a spot and not move back to station all day.

That's about it.

Yes, having to rearm at the station it's a pita sometimes. What kind of lasers would you advice? I love beams, they can melt your ship from the inside and they drain the PD pretty fast, but they punch very hard. Tried a full pulse loadout on my FdL and I found it very frustrating.

 

[zarrazee]

I like the full MC loadout, but I find it too annoying constantly having to use synthesis or going back to the station. On my Viper Mk3, I always use full MC, but on other combat ships I have a laser/MC combo.

My opinion? Stick with what you like best. For me, enjoyment > DPS.

 

[StiTch]

Yes, having to rearm at the station it's a pita sometimes. What kind of lasers would you advice? I love beams, they can melt your ship from the inside and they drain the PD pretty fast, but they punch very hard. Tried a full pulse loadout on my FdL and I found it very frustrating.

Well that's the problem, they don't actually punch any harder than MCs.

Realistically speaking, lazors do also have the advantage of being hitscan. This means they are easier to hit with at longer ranges as well as being easily usable for unlocking target during chaff for fixed hits.

But that's it - being ammoless and easier situational hitscan firing...MCs dominate the damage department. And by a very, very strong margin for DpE. Which is why you are having this issue - where full MCs can fire basically indefinitely, meaning your overall damage is being limited by your time on target, when using lasers your bottleneck for damage will more frequently lie with your distributor.

So if you find yourself burning through your weapon cap too fast either head to the engineers and roll/reroll efficient lazors and charge enhanced distributor until it becomes far less of an issue, or - perhaps preferably to you - don't run a full lazor setup. On a FDL try, say, the C4 and 2xC2 lazors so you can free up two C2 slots for a feedback rail and corrosive MC, or full C2 lazor loadout and whatever preferred kinetic devastation on the bottom.

On the gunship this is all less of an issue because...well, dat C7 distributor baby.

EDIT: To put into perspective how unbalanced the kinetics are, the unmodified C2 multicannon has more raw DPS than a C2 beam laser. And with about 3 times the DpE. Which means you can choose to put OC on the MCs instead of efficient, which just blows the thermal weapons out the water. Technically this changes at higher classes but IMO we shouldn't even be having that discussion about MC vs. beam, with beam having always being put forward as "drains your cap fast for immense but unsustainable bursts of damage".

 

[Nerwan]

I'm talking about PvE, where module sniping is not needed.

1. You obviously haven't tried PVE piracy where it is most definitely needed.
2. Multi-cannon's are really good at module sniping....

You are right though, MCs are one of the easiest to use and effective weapons in the game. They're a bit boring after a while, that's one reason you might want to try something else.

 

[Grumpy jawa]

I just enjoy 4x packhounds with extended mag... stuff just goes boom and I tend to run out of mc ammo faster than packhounds.

 

[Sabier]

Plasma = Fun.

That's the reason you are looking for.

 

[GammaZ]

Especially when you consider engineer specials... all-multicannon loadouts are quite effective. But then we have efficient for pulses/bursts now, which allow constant fire without running out of power too.
And multicannons still have their limitations. It is near-impossible to hit small targets at larger distances, while with long-range fixed beam it is possible to fry eagle/sidewinder/fighter 5km away. They have reloads, which sometimes can happen at wrong moment. They have limited ammo. C1/C2/C3 ones also have fairly long spin-up time, with C3 being the worst ones in this regard.

The ones i really like are huge ones. A pair of them with incendiary special on corvette feels like i am shooting starwars-style lasers from somewhere above my head

 

[d8veh]

An all pulse laser load-out, engineered with efficient mod, is devastating. It's ideal for CZs, RES farming and CNBs.

 

[smiths121]

Hi OP,

I cannot think of a reason why not - especially for PvE.

I tend to go all MC for non combat ships, such as Asps. Love them on the Asp, may not be the most devastating and have crapy range, but when you fire off all 6 - it does make a really nice sound.

Simon

 

[Stealthie]

I might be wrong but it feels like MCs don't hit as hard.

The DPS might be the same as some other weapon but that only works IF you get a full second of hits on-target.

If you have, say, a pair of cannons, you pull the trigger once and (assuming you hit your target) you deliver the full amount of damage.
Conversely, with MCs, you have to pull the trigger, keep it pulled and follow your target for a full second and all your bullets have to hit their target every second in order to deliver the same damage.
Obviously, the flip-side of this is that if you miss with a cannon you do zero damage whereas you're more likely to do some damage with MCs.

 

[StiTch]

I cannot think of a reason why not - especially for PvE.

Tbh it's only really PvP where this all makes a huge difference.

PvE, anything engineered is viable. No the pulse loadout won't be as fully effective but they'll all melt anyway and you don't need to rearm

Up close, full MC loadout is like putting them through a massive ship shredder. But...my gunship has every hardpoint occupied with something ammo based and if I don't come across another CMDR, I sometimes wish I'd painted everything other than the C1 slots with lazor death and just not needed to go back to base when the MCs/PA/missiles run out...

 

[Rich123poppop]

On my Annie I have 2 load outs.
On the 4 small/med points efficient beams and on the 4 large/huge points I have MCs with high capacity. Worked a treat at the CZ community goal. I found this was the quickest way to destroy ships, especially that annoying annie or cobra who had their ships full of SCBs.
2nd loadout is 4 small/med long range pulses and a huge long range pulse and 3 fragment cannons. This is more for HAZ RES as I can fire on a target from 5km away and then when it gets close with low or no shields I let them have it with the frag cannons.

 

[GreyAreaUK]

I'm considering making a change to my Python's loadout. Currently the three large HPs have two beam lasers and a pulse laser, while the medium HPs ar MCs. However, I'm starting to doubt the use of that pulse laser, so I may swap it out for another MC. The beams already do a good job of removing those tiresome shields.