Engineers OC Beams on Vulture?

[CMDR Rhatigan]

Just a quick question today, looking for some input.

I am overhauling my Vulture, and am about finished now with Fixed Efficient Beam Lasers.. but have enough excess power for Overcharged Beams.. my only concern is heat.

Anyone else run this and can provide insight? Thermal Vent is a consideration but I'm not sure how much that cooks if I miss too much lol

Especially bc I want to keep my 3 shield boosters and chaff so don't want to have to add in Heat Sinks...

 

[Starman 1966]

I was running an overcharged thermal vent beam on my vulture some months ago. I had no heat issues but wasn't overly impressed by the damage increase. Perhaps long range would have been better. But I can say that a pure frag Vulture is _big_ fun to use. It's like a sawn-off double-barrel space shotgun.

 

[Herbrand]

If you want to fry eggs on your canopy, yes, you can use them.

 

[ForeverN00b]

If you want to use a powerful laser, use long range.

The reason is simple: The damage dropoff for any laser other than LR is 500 meters (in other words, to get full damage your enemy has to be right in your face). However, there is no damage dropoff for LR lasers, they carry max damage out to their max range. Someone did the math as to what point LR lasers are better than OC, and the answer he came up with was 1.2km. Any range past 1.2km, LR lasers beat OC in pure damage. Not only that, LR don't run as hot or require as much capacitor draw or power draw.

Edit: On top of all that, LR lasers shoot farther too! LR lasers are simply better in the vast majority of combat situations.

TLR
Use Long Range mod over Overcharged every time (for lasers). You'll thank me later.

 

[Stealthie]

I now run a pair of G5 Efficient Beams on my Vulture although I might reconsider that at some point.

I used to run with 1 Beam and 1 M/C and I applied the overcharged mod' (can't remember what level it was but I wasn't that serious about my engineering at the time so it was probably G3, or maybe G4 at best) and it just overheated constantly.
I seem to recall that I used it twice, in RES's, and then just flew back to the station and removed the mod.

I also went through a phase of applying the long-range mod' to beams for the reasons stated above.
Problems with overcharged Beams have made me a bit "gun-shy" now, though, so I usually just apply a G5 efficient mod' without hesitation.

 

[Morbad]

Anyone else run this and can provide insight? Thermal Vent is a consideration but I'm not sure how much that cooks if I miss too much lol

Thermal vent is really the only useful effect for beams, unless you are trying to be a shield medic. If you're missing, let up on the trigger.

If you want to use a powerful laser, use long range.

The reason is simple: The damage dropoff for any laser other than LR is 500 meters (in other words, to get full damage your enemy has to be right in your face). However, there is no damage dropoff for LR lasers, they carry max damage out to their max range. Someone did the math as to what point LR lasers are better than OC, and the answer he came up with was 1.2km. Any range past 1.2km, LR lasers beat OC in pure damage. Not only that, LR don't run as hot or require as much capacitor draw or power draw.

Edit: On top of all that, LR lasers shoot farther too! LR lasers are simply better in the vast majority of combat situations.

TLR
Use Long Range mod over Overcharged every time (for lasers). You'll thank me later.

Drop off starts at 600m for beams, but yes, past 1.2-1.5km LR will out damage everything else.

That said, it's not hard to control distance with a Vulture (my combat Vulture boosts to 540m/s and the Vulture has one of the smallest differences in acceleration/speed from ENG pips in the game) and even in ships where the enemy can dictate distance to a degree, I still often prefer efficient beams.

 

[Aris_]

Even eff. beams drain the capacitor too fast , if you strafing the trg go for focused burst or pulse good up to 2km (versus LR) and useful for hull you get penetration increase, other than that LR is perfect not for beams thou