Isnt it somehow lame that Multicannons are so much better than Railguns and Cannons?

[Distance]

Nah, they're doing that combat zone grinding because they can hack it and probably won't get detected (so quickly). If they could hack "trading" as easily, they would do that as well. Or mining.

Yes I agree and the reason why some of these people are hacking is because they want to fly anacondas. I'm not saying make things easier to obtain or cheaper I'm saying professions need to scale. Whilst people hacking in solo might not be a problem now it will be down the line when they all turn up in open with pimped out ships.

There are also credit hacks but as you say too easy to detect. The other credit hack is running 2 or more instances and trading in 2 separate stations without moving. The latest I saw today was a zero cooldown and charge instant fsd with up to 2000ly range.

This is all pretty off topic though so I'll stop with the hacking stuff as fd are well aware of the hacking thread.

 

[Naranek]

that would be nice, thanks for that.

ok so i did a new test – flew out of the station's (sharon lee free market, orrere) no fire zone, fired one shot with one cannon, came back in, paid 20cr for it. seems ok to me (weird though that it says in the munitions tab that the "unit cost" is 200cr, must mean that the system considers 10 shells to be 1 unit).

i'll test the damage etc over the next days i guess, but so far i like it.

 

[Lazerus Artificial]

ok so i did a new test – flew out of the station's (sharon lee free market, orrere) no fire zone, fired one shot with one cannon, came back in, paid 20cr for it. seems ok to me (weird though that it says in the munitions tab that the "unit cost" is 200cr, must mean that the system considers 10 shells to be 1 unit).

i'll test the damage etc over the next days i guess, but so far i like it.

that could be the case then, i think for gatlings it was 4 shots per unit or so.
thanks for that test

seems like only the railgun is expensive then

 

[Cathalo]

MC's are fine, perhaps a bit too effective against shields for a projectile weapon but overall I think they're fine. Railguns need a slight buff in the way of ammo, other than that they are working as intended and a superior choice in PvP over MC's. Cannons I haven't used much but they're a situational weapon, if you want to build your ship to tackle large ships then cannons are a good choice, perhaps better than MC's but are worse than MC's for taking out smaller targets.
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The reason MC's seem more powerful is because when used in PvE you frequently come up against ships that do not use shields, plus they have large ammo stores which allow you to hunt for longer before needing to reload ammo.

 

[Lazerus Artificial]

MC's are fine, perhaps a bit too effective against shields for a projectile weapon but overall I think they're fine. Railguns need a slight buff in the way of ammo, other than that they are working as intended and a superior choice in PvP over MC's. Cannons I haven't used much but they're a situational weapon, if you want to build your ship to tackle large ships then cannons are a good choice, perhaps better than MC's but are worse than MC's for taking out smaller targets.
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The reason MC's seem more powerful is because when used in PvE you frequently come up against ships that do not use shields, plus they have large ammo stores which allow you to hunt for longer before needing to reload ammo.

i guess the large amount of ammo is just one issue.
sure the damage itself is perfectly fine, but then again as mentioned, it seems to be the other way around as if it was stated.
its not Railgun and Cannon against large, Gatling agains small. its more like the opposite, since a gatling can deal more damage against slow and big targets (and cheaper), while a railgun can onehit small and fast targets.
using a railgun against a big target will make you poor
(i mean when you have to spend like 35k credits to refill and fire 20 of 30 shots for one kill...its a much better use to kill a small fighter with it instead and use the cheap gatling against that big target because it can hit it better than the small the fighter)

 

[Cathalo]

i guess the large amount of ammo is just one issue.
sure the damage itself is perfectly fine, but then again as mentioned, it seems to be the other way around as if it was stated.
its not Railgun and Cannon against large, Gatling agains small. its more like the opposite, since a gatling can deal more damage against slow and big targets (and cheaper), while a railgun can onehit small and fast targets.

It largely depends on which ship and class of weapons too. Smaller class railguns cannot one hit anything unless shields are down and a subsystem is targeted, similarly smaller class MC's have a much shorter range (especially if they are gimbaled) forcing the pilot to get up close and personal with the larger ship which is dangerous and risky for the small ship. The choice of fixed/gimbaled cannot be left out of the conversation, because there are advantages to both and disadvantages depending on the type of weapon you're using.
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In PvE, gimbaled MC's are king right now I would say, but if you try bringing them into a PvP fight against anyone worth their salt you will get your butt handed to you, no matter what ship you're flying.

 

[Lazerus Artificial]

In PvE, gimbaled MC's are king right now I would say, but if you try bringing them into a PvP fight against anyone worth their salt you will get your butt handed to you, no matter what ship you're flying.

yep, that was mentioned a few times, and that alone should speak for the current PVE balance.
If you cant hit your target, a gatling will deal less damage, since even every second or third hit from one of the larger weapons will deal a good amount of damage. sadly, you cant afford too many misses. if you need around 20 direct hits from 6 railguns to kill the anaconda, then they are not worth it when you use a smaller ship with less guns. you would run out of ammo before you can kill it.

its also dangerous to stay away from that larger ship, since he has more time to turn around and shoot you. that was a problem i had in a fight with my 1 gatling sidewinder against a viper. as long as i was close and behind him, i had the advantage. but as soon as i lost him for a few secods, he shred through my shields

 

[Cathalo]

yep, that was mentioned a few times, and that alone should speak for the current PVE balance.
If you cant hit your target, a gatling will deal less damage, since even every second or third hit from one of the larger weapons will deal a good amount of damage. sadly, you cant afford too many misses. if you need around 20 direct hits from 6 railguns to kill the anaconda, then they are not worth it when you use a smaller ship with less guns. you would run out of ammo before you can kill it.

its also dangerous to stay away from that larger ship, since he has more time to turn around and shoot you. that was a problem i had in a fight with my 1 gatling sidewinder against a viper. as long as i was close and behind him, i had the advantage. but as soon as i lost him for a few secods, he shred through my shields

It all depends, though. If those railguns are large, or medium or small. Large railguns are no joke, two of them can pop an A grade cobra in as few as 1 direct hits to a proper subsystem (life support or power plant). MC's can't do that. MC's seem to be better when fitted on the smaller ships which have more power constraints and smaller class loadouts and are maneuverable enough to stay behind the target. The reason MC's are so powerful in PvE has more to do with the way PvE ships are loaded out and the way the AI fly, in my opinion. Many NPC's don't have shield generators even when they're flying ships like Anaconda's and Pythons, when they do they tend to have all Pips in only one category and neglect the others, which is stupid.
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I think railguns on the smaller ships could use a buff in the amount of ammo they have, but even with that said MC's would still be better because ammo is cheaper and given the number of AI who don't use shield generators they are a more economical weapons for a smaller ship, both in terms of ammo cost and in terms of power management.

 

[Rutg3rO]

I'm not going to involve myself in the technical discussion, but I can say something about the feel of cannons. I have a cobra with 2 beams on the small slots and two B2 (Yes I got lucky in finding them) cannons on the medium slots. Everything I have to say is probably mentioned before, but well maybe writing it again helps in not nerfing MC's

• The price of ammo is a fraction of the amount I can gather by bounty hunting until my ammo is depleted. Yes it is more expensive than MC ammo, but I couldn't care less unless I get interdicted, have a huge fight and my attacker gets away at 4% hull...
• I rarely had the pleasure of killing someone with 40% hull while blowing out his power plant when flying with MC's. I do this a lot with my cannons. A good double hit sometimes takes a powerplant of another Cobra to 44%.. This is exactly the power I love from my cannons.
• Yes, you need to have a little bit of restraint on those triggers. Train your combat skills and only fire when you are quite certain you can hit your opponent. To me, this is the thrill of combat. Being able to always hit my target when using gimballed multi-cannons feels like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_ADW9UCQM8 (operation Wolf) with limitless ammo.
• I do however support the idea of increase the velocity of cannons. The bullets fly to slow to my liking. Hitting another Cobra at 1.3k is almost impossible even though my target rectangles hit the mark and I'm not out of range.

 

[Frenotx]

Cannons and Railguns are meant to be able to deal more damage against larger ships than the ship you're firing from than a same sized multicannon would. If you're attacking smaller or same sized ships then multicannons may do better because of the amount of damage you can still do when missing a few shots where cannons and railguns are punishing if you miss.

Do you guys ever intend to make this hidden "hardness piercing" stat visible in the outfitting screen?

 

[Doctor Axel]

I dunno, I kind of like cannons.

I have twin beams for melting small targets and for stripping shields / destroying systems on large ones, and I have twin gimballed class 1 cannons for punching holes in fools. Sure they're harder to aim, but the ammo isn't SERIOUSLY that expensive. It's like 20 bucks for a shell that deals comparable damage to a missile.

The velocity should certainly be increased a bit - in this I agree. The difference is that they should have a greater degree of spread. This will keep them from being able to snipe small, nimble targets (that's what railguns are for), but keeps them super effective against larger targets, as they ought to be.

EDIT

You may recognize me as the guy who liked seeker missiles. =P I still do - but cannons are definitely the more economical option, and they're immune to point defense, so they've got that going for them, which is nice.

 

[ShadowWolf Kell]

Gameplay of a Viper with c1 beams and c2 cannons. Definitely more effective against larger targets, and more effective with the fixed versions. I agree, ballistics needs to be revisited a bit.

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