So Apparently Four Medium Salvation Plasma Chargers Can Pop a Cyclops After the Second Heart... with Stock Ammo.

CMDR The Riz

CMDR The Riz
I've had a ton of fun with those Salvation Shard Cannons, but after I shredded the 100th or so Cyclops with them I remembered that Salvation Plasma Chargers were a thing. I've used them extensively in the past, but I've never stuck four on a ship before. So I did, and noticed that a full salvo hits HARD - like, REALLY HARD. And then I got to theorycrafting...

Follow my crazy late-night SCIECNE! for a moment: based on the in-game stats, Salvation Plasma Chargers (SPCs) loaded with stock ammo (the stuff straight from the Rearm button 🙂):
  • Have a base AX damage of 4.6 MJs
  • Deal 78.2 MJs when fully charged
  • A full salvo of four SPCs can dish out a whopping 312.8 MJs.
The Cannon website has a list of the Thargoid Interceptor Hull HP, Hardness and Heart Integrities - found here: https://canonn.science/codex/thargoid-interceptor-hull-analysis/
From their analysis, I noticed that a Cyclops:
  • Has ~811 MJs for HP
  • A Hull Hardness stat of ~102
SPCs have an Armor Piercing value of 110, so they will deal full damage to a Cyclops. Assuming I'm within 1 km to avoid damage falloff, 312.8 MJs is 38.7% of the Cyclops' total HP. That last bit got me wondering - if I can fire two fully-charged salvos in rapid succession after I destroy the second Heart, putting the Interceptor at 60% HP (~486.6 MJs), I might be able to pop the Cyclops without destroying the other two hearts.

A few hours of trial-and-error and some questionable tactics later, I got my answer: YES!

Video demonstration below:
Source: https://youtu.be/VaJqXxXu-dM


The setup is a tad finicky and requires some precise aiming / timing, but it seems to work best right after destroying the second heart. The first salvo won't trigger the third heart's exertion phase, allowing just barely enough time for a follow-up salvo to take out the Cyclops before it regenerates too much HP. It's also plausible to bait a Lightning Attack and destroy the second heart then, as the Cyclops won't notice the heart's been destroyed until after the Attack.

If you do attempt this, make sure your WEP capacitor is full and 4 Pips are in WEP when you destroy the second heart - you'll need ALL of your capacitor juice to pull this off.

And now I'm wondering if I can do this with stock ammo on the Salvation Shard Cannons...

Also, don't be me and try this with a Clipper - get a ship with better / any hardpoint convergence 🙃
 

Vedmo

Vedmo
Took my Phantom and bought four of those, then went back to finish off the build and found 2 I already had in storage... Anyways, I have managed to pull off a kill after 2nd heart once after, we'll say intentionally cough,cough triggering a lightning storm. The biggest problem I've had is missing the heart with a full 4 shot charge and sending it back into shield mode without knocking out a heart after doing so much damage to it. Insta gibbing scouts with a 4 shot volley makes this one of the most effective scout killing setups I've ever ran too. Lots of fun, thanks for the idea.
 

tolm

tolm
And I think this answers the question as to why we’re not allowed more than 4 of these on a ship …

Which leads me to … multiple ships each with multiple Plasma chargers … could they instakill a Cyclops without even bothering with any hearts?!
 

CMDR The Riz

CMDR The Riz
tolm said:
And I think this answers the question as to why we’re not allowed more than 4 of these on a ship …

Which leads me to … multiple ships each with multiple Plasma chargers … could they instakill a Cyclops without even bothering with any hearts?!
Click to expand...
I've theorized that a minimum of 3 ships with a full compliment of SPCs all firing within about half a second of one another should be enough to insta-kill one. The math behind such a move:
312.8 MJ / volley under 1km * 1 volley / ship * 3 ships = 938 MJ >> 811 MJ Cyclops HP
​
Two ships could dump 626 MJ per volley together, but I'd be worried about triggering the Cyclops' panic shield after the first shot. It might be doable, though.

Also, while I've been able to replicate what I now call the Two Heart Skip several times now, it's wildly inconsistent for me. Sometimes I can hit it no problem, but yesterday I couldn't nail it at all. Does anybody know if the Interceptors' health varies between individual Interceptors of a given class, and if their HP regen is somehow tied to framerate?*

*Pure speculation on my part, but I've noticed that locking my framerate at 45 FPS did make it easier to hit the Two Heart Skip for a few attempts, but that might be a case of confirmation bias. Tests are ongoing :D

STRIKE THAT!

I think I'm onto something. I reviewed some of my footage and came away with two very interesting observations:
  1. NPCs can potentially make this easier - might be the case in this video as you can see some AX Multicannon fire right at the end there (not sure if any hit though - I didn't see any breaks in the tracers)
  2. Due to a lighting-induced malfunction, apparently I managed to do the Two Heart Skip with 3 1/2 SPCs in another fight.
Which lead me to hypothesize the following strategy when alternating fire with 2 SPCs at a time: after popping the second heart, charge the two you just used to about half full, then fire all four SPCs. Charge again and Cyclops should go boom.

Just thought of this now, but potentially splitting the firegroup 3-1 and using the 1 SPC as a heart sniper could also potentially work.

It's worked for a couple Cyclopes now, but I won't definitively state that either approach is a 100% reliable strategy yet. Needs more testing, but this is definitely repeatable solo.

Edit: I should also add all of this is assuming a 6A Charge Enhanced | Super Conduits Distributor. This will definitely be easier with larger Distributors.
 
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Vedmo

Vedmo
Running 2 of these on a Viper 4 now, with two small beams for cooling, and I’m almost starting to feel bad for the bugs. Obviously no chance of skipping 2 hearts, but I have brought a cyclops from 40% to dead during a lightning storm.
CMDR The Riz said:
Just thought of this now, but potentially splitting the firegroup 3-1 and using the 1 SPC as a heart sniper could also potentially work.
Click to expand...

My biggest problem by far was triggering panic shield with a full salvo, so well worth checking out.
 

deleteduser

D
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CMDR The Riz

CMDR The Riz
Cmr_Honkalot said:
how do I get me some of these salvation chargers? I got the guardian ones unlocked already
Click to expand...
They are purchasable with the materials list @deleteduser posted above in the Mbooni system. You will need to become allied with Azimuth Biotech to get the permit to enter the system, which IIRC can be done from the Glorious Prospect megaship in LHS 1163 by running missions for Azimuth.



Bit of an update on the Two Heart Skip: it seems as though the 3-1 firegroup split is the way to go on a 6A Charge Enhanced | Super Conduits Distributor. The procedure is as follows:
  1. Pop the first heart and exert the second; use 3 SPCs to exert, save the remaining one for heart sniping
  2. When the second heart is exerted, charge and hold the 3 SPCs while you work on the heart with the 4th; keep 4 Pips in Weapons at all times
  3. Just before popping the second heart, ensure you are within 1 km of the Cyclops
    • Plasma Chargers suffer pretty strongly from damage falloff
  4. Pop the second heart and fully charge the 4th SPC; fire a full volley
  5. Fully charge all 4 SPCs and fire again; follow up with a few spam shots if necessary.
    • Edit: Keep an eye on the Cyclops' HP - if it passes 30% at any point you'll need to fire immediately and follow up with another partially charged volley.
This'll work about 30-40% of the time with a Clipper. The largest issue is range control here, as that Damage Falloff will absolutely make or break any Two Heart Skip attempt. Good news is that if you fail the Two Heart Skip, exploding the Cyclops without popping the last heart (hereafter referred to as "Last Heart Skip") is much, much easier to do. Most of my Two Heart Skip attempts end up that way 🙃
 
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