Engineers Plasma mods

[Olle3000]

Hello everyone,
Im curious to hear what your preferred mods/experimentals on the plasmas are. Im running a pvp FDL with 4 medium MCs and one huge PA, charge enhanced pd. Im also suffering from a lot of heat.

I have googled of course but seem to find only old threads where people stated that plasma is getting a buff with 2.2 etc... so i wanna get up to speed with the current opinions

I have also heard some people mention that the focused mod comes with faster projectiles, this is however not mentioned anywere ingame so im not sure?

 

[Crimson Kaim]

Focused increases projectile speed, OC increases dmg, efficient reduces heat and pd draw and pp draw and slightly increases damage. For the FDL I'd go for efficient.

 

[Kzak]

I have some Long Range-modded level 5 Advanced Plasma Accelerators. 1.5 km/s shot speed, 6.5 km max range. Handy for long-range bombardment, which might possibly be needed later in the game.

That said, Efficient is perhaps the most commonly used engineer modification due to the many advantages it brings.

 

[Hunter241]

I went for a level 4 efficient mod with plasma slug upgrade, no need to buy ammo just refill from a star

Gonna go back to bill for a level 5 now I have the mats for it

 

[CptXabaras]

Efficient and Long range are the most effective mods imho, focused is not an option for me since PA have already 100 Armor penetration and it is pointless to increase it further.

I run 2 x efficient APA on the vulture

5 x Efficient PA (2 of them are APA) on the cutter

2 x long range C2 PA on the FAS

Choice depend on ship capacitor, Power plant output and heat efficiency and how prone said ship is to overheat.

As far as special effect, i use Target lock breaker and dispersal field as effect of choice.

 

[Olle3000]

Alright, it looks like ill go for efficient then...but i wish to mod it to increase shot speed...and as far as i understand from you guys, the speed increases with focused and long range?

 

[Conch]

got the most cheesy weapon in the game, G5 rapid fire APA with TLB

 

[the100thmonkey]

Alright, it looks like ill go for efficient then...but i wish to mod it to increase shot speed...and as far as i understand from you guys, the speed increases with focused and long range?

Yes, efficient doesn't increase shot speed. It's still awesome though. I've been running dual efficient plasma mods on my Vulture for a while now. It's a lod of fun, although those bloody Vipers are a PITA.

 

[Herbrand]

For PvP I run with dual Long Range (harder to dodge), one with Target Lock Breaker and the other with Dispersal Field. Big ships are dead in the water.

 

[Only Mostly Here]

I used to run with efficient, but the low velocity means that you have to be literally point blank to not miss. It makes firing the PAs much less taxing, but in terms of ability to get damage on target long range is IMO by far the best mod. It also allows shots to deal full damage regardless of what range you fire from, which with the velocity of a multicannon can be pretty long against large ships. On something like the FDL which can easily take the power and distributor draw of PAs, I'd go with long range. On something that's really too small to have any business using PAs like a Cobra, that's where efficient isn't just best, it's more or less mandatory.

 

[Alexander the Grape]

Focused and Long Range increase projectile velocity, which is the most important for PvP.

Generally Focused is preferred as it does not increase weight and power requirements.

However heat is a problem. It's recommended you do a number of G5 rolls in order to reduce thermal load if you want more than 2 medium or 1 huge Focused PA.

If you're mixing with other weapons, go Focused. If you're going all-plasma, go all Efficient or Efficient and 1 huge Focused

 

[Herbrand]

Focused and Long Range increase projectile velocity, which is the most important for PvP.

Generally Focused is preferred as it does not increase weight and power requirements.

However heat is a problem. It's recommended you do a number of G5 rolls in order to reduce thermal load if you want more than 2 medium or 1 huge Focused PA.

If you're mixing with other weapons, go Focused. If you're going all-plasma, go all Efficient or Efficient and 1 huge Focused

You think so? Long Range also increases damage fall-off range, meaning that shots do not lose any damage across their (extended) range. Would you deem this not to good enough to balance the increased mass and power requirements?

 

[Alexander the Grape]

You think so? Long Range also increases damage fall-off range, meaning that shots do not lose any damage across their (extended) range. Would you deem this not to good enough to balance the increased mass and power requirements?

If you're able to land PA shots from 4km+, then sure. For us mortals, there's no practical difference.