Newcomer / Intro Piercing, Focused Weapons, and Modules

[Old Duck]

This is a noob question, so I'm posting it here. That and I will actually be starting over from scratch soon, with all the various limitations of a new account. Here's my question:

Does piercing have anything to do with the ability to take out a module, or is it solely about overcoming hull hardness? I've heard of this thing called "breech chance" but I don't really understand it. I'm just wondering if using a focused weapon will increase module damage per shot, above and beyond the weapon's DPS rating.

I should state that my primary interest is lasers (focused pulse or burst), though I take answers regarding kinetic weapons as well.

 

[Chris Simon]

AFAIK (grain of salt and all that jazz - I'm not a combat pilot) armour penetration is strictly a hull thing. If the module is on the surface, you will damage it regardless of your AP rating.
Modules inside the ship will be tougher nut to crack when you're in a small ship vs. large one, for example and naturally with high pen weapons, when you hit a module, you have a chance to damage stuff behind the module as well and bleed much more damage into the surrounding hull, which isn't the case when you're shooting small weapons (except things like railguns, of course)
It can be a good thing, though. Some pirates I know use small, low-pen weapons exactly for this reason - when they are disabling a module, they are damaging just the module and won't kill the ship by collateral which is often the case with large weapons.

 

[Dommarraa]

Thats no noob question, thats ninja level stuff, and probably about 3rd or 4th on my list of priorities. Other stuff always overrides these considerations to the point that I have totally blanked them as irrelevant.
Some ninja will swear blind its impossible to play without some specific set of mods.

(I quite like Focused, but often go with Long Range instead just for ease of use)

 

[Old Duck]

Some pirates I know use small, low-pen weapons exactly for this reason - when they are disabling a module, they are damaging just the module and won't kill the ship by collateral which is often the case with large weapons.

Wait. You're saying small weapons can take out modules with the same effectiveness as large weapons? If this is the case, what is the measurement of a weapon's effectiveness against a module? It can't be DPS or piercing if what you say is true.

 

[Old Duck]

(I quite like Focused, but often go with Long Range instead just for ease of use)

I use LR on fixed weapons but find it less useful on gimbals due to jitter. Even G3 piercing will often outperform LR against hulls up to 1500+ meters.

 

[Voracity_T]

APV (Armour pericing values) dictate how much of a damage debuff a weapon gets in regard to the hardness value of a said ship's hull.

Can't give you exact numbers but if your APV doesn't exceed or equal that of your opponents hull you deal potentially significant reduced damage. (Hence why small ships are so ineffective which is a real shame)

Breach chance is your weapons likelyhood of pericing the hull and damaging a module.

Focused can be used to make lasers more viable vs larger hulls and give extra range. Good on a hitscan boat that intends on keeping its distance, but bad for close range dogfighting.

Sturdy will also increase the APV of a said weapon but often is inferior to the other modifications avalible due to the damage increase against larger hulls not being as significant as the other potential damage buffs which will affect all targets as opposed to just the bigger ones. Though this is the case with Foc' aswell though that has more viable applications.

 

[Chris Simon]

Wait. You're saying small weapons can take out modules with the same effectiveness as large weapons? If this is the case, what is the measurement of a weapon's effectiveness against a module? It can't be DPS or piercing if what you say is true.

I think the main balancing factor is HP of the module. Plus naturally smaller weapons do have lower DPS.

 

[Old Duck]

Breach chance is your weapons likelyhood of pericing the hull and damaging a module.

I've heard of this breach chance in regards to things like cannons and railguns, but I don't know where to find and compare this spec for things like a pulse laser. I'm not seeing it listed on coriolis.io, my go-to ship building site.

 

[Voracity_T]

I've heard of this breach chance in regards to things like cannons and railguns, but I don't know where to find and compare this spec for things like a pulse laser. I'm not seeing it listed on coriolis.io, my go-to ship building site.

IIRC Coriolis does'nt list extensive infomation regarding modules offensive capabilities. Moreover it's missing a large amount of infomation relevant to building a ship which I eventually started to find irksome and moved to EDSY.

Check in game but as a general rule larger "caliber" weapons offer higher breach chance though you can expect a Cannon to have a higher breach chance than for instance a Pulse laser. "More details" ingame will give a stat sheet for any given module, accesed by selecting the module in outfitting.

 

[Old Duck]

Check in game but as a general rule larger "caliber" weapons offer higher breach chance though you can expect a Cannon to have a higher breach chance than for instance a Pulse laser. "More details" ingame will give a stat sheet for any given module, accesed by selecting the module in outfitting.

You're just trying to get me to go to ShinDez, LOL. I will have to check this out. I'm assuming then that there are no engineering mods or SEs to improve breach chance... However, if I breach, I assume module damage per hit would be proportional to weapon DPS, yes?

 

[Voracity_T]

You're just trying to get me to go to ShinDez, LOL. I will have to check this out. I'm assuming then that there are no engineering mods or SEs to improve breach chance... However, if I breach, I assume module damage per hit would be proportional to weapon DPS, yes?

Ha, Plenty of places to buy modules outside of 'rarta ay. Only takes a second to have a glance. Window shopping if you will.

Damage per Shot, DPS is largley irrelevant unless you exceedingly skilled at hitting said module repeatedly. Mostly its an unachievable stat but is somewhat more reliable when used on ToT concerning hull.

 

[Kissamies]

I thought breach chance might have something to do with the Hull Breach debuff (the explodey icon), which makes the internal modules more vulnerable to damage apparently.