Your thoughts on Cannons?

Stealthie

Stealthie
I first fitted cannons to a ship "by accident", while trying to upgrade my Cobra at a station that didn't have any multi-cannons in stock.
Can't say I was that impressed.

Recently I've been experimenting with defensive weapons for larger ships and, in particular, I've been playing with turreted weapons.
I know it's a bit "lazy" but I like the idea of having weapons where I can "just let them get on with it" while I worry about stuff like energy-management and high-waking etc.

So, that brings me back to cannons and, I gotta say, I'm quite impressed by turreted cannons.
On a ship that has plenty of hardpoints, I'll fit a couple of turreted beam-lasers for knocking down shields and then just fit as many turreted cannons as possible.
Just the sound of having 8 cannons all plonking away relentlessly at some attacker makes me smile.
It's all very "WW2 battleships in space". :D
 

Wasp0

Wasp0
Stealthie said:
I first fitted cannons to a ship "by accident", while trying to upgrade my Cobra at a station that didn't have any multi-cannons in stock.
Can't say I was that impressed.

Recently I've been experimenting with defensive weapons for larger ships and, in particular, I've been playing with turreted weapons.
I know it's a bit "lazy" but I like the idea of having weapons where I can "just let them get on with it" while I worry about stuff like energy-management and high-waking etc.

So, that brings me back to cannons and, I gotta say, I'm quite impressed by turreted cannons.
On a ship that has plenty of hardpoints, I'll fit a couple of turreted beam-lasers for knocking down shields and then just fit as many turreted cannons as possible.
Just the sound of having 8 cannons all plonking away relentlessly at some attacker makes me smile.
It's all very "WW2 battleships in space". :D
Click to expand...

I raised a similar post a couple of days back. Have you engineered them at all? If so with what and what Special did you go for?

Thanks

o7
 

StiTch

StiTch
Fixed, engineered cannons are evil for most things.

Gimballed cannons are your premier subsystem wreckers. Especially OC'd, they allow smaller ships to dismantle big ship power plants/distributors so quickly you'll feel you are in fast forward, and the Benny Hill theme will start playing in your head. Apply Auto Loader for continuous system sniping or high yield shell if you want to obliterate just about anything inside it, including basically liquidising the inside and out of any small ship on impact.

Turreted cannons...eh?
 

Conch

Conch
i run my second corvette with all OC cannons with the biggest 3 with high yield.
i see ships die with more than half their hull and im not even targeting modules.
 

CMDR Ahab

CMDR Ahab
Gimballed force shells aren't much use for anything other than the comedy value when they do actually hit something!
 

Wasp0

Wasp0
StiTch said:
Fixed, engineered cannons are evil for most things.

Gimballed cannons are your premier subsystem wreckers. Especially OC'd, they allow smaller ships to dismantle big ship power plants/distributors so quickly you'll feel you are in fast forward, and the Benny Hill theme will start playing in your head. Apply Auto Loader for continuous system sniping or high yield shell if you want to obliterate just about anything inside it, including basically liquidising the inside and out of any small ship on impact.

Turreted cannons...eh?
Click to expand...

Conch said:
i run my second corvette with all OC cannons with the biggest 3 with high yield.
i see ships die with more than half their hull and im not even targeting modules.
Click to expand...

Oh Very nice indeedie.
 

Stealthie

Stealthie
IndigoWyrd said:
Ah cannons...

They never have enough ammo, even with High Capacity mods, they never have enough ammo.
Click to expand...

See, that's something I was wondering about.

So far I've only fitted them to trading ships, as defensive weapons, and they seem really good at ripping apart NPCs with almost no effort.
Even when things like Anacondas interdict me, all I have to do is keep the attacker in a position where my cannons can see it and it IS going to explode sooner or later.

Which rather makes me wonder what it'd be like to wade into a CZ in, say, a Corvette tooled-up with cannons.
On the plus side, they're purely kinetic so there's little heat or power draw, which means they pretty-much look after themselves.
On the minus side, any weapon with finite ammo is going to have it's limitations, although you can, of course, synthesise ammo to reload.
And, of course, if your turrets are happily chewing through enemy ships, you've got plenty of time to create more ammo without having to panic about it.

I certainly don't think they're aggressive enough for PvP but they're great fun against NPCs.
And the noise, when you've got a bunch of 'em fitted, really is superb.
 

IndigoWyrd

IndigoWyrd
Stealthie said:
See, that's something I was wondering about.

So far I've only fitted them to trading ships, as defensive weapons, and they seem really good at ripping apart NPCs with almost no effort.
Even when things like Anacondas interdict me, all I have to do is keep the attacker in a position where my cannons can see it and it IS going to explode sooner or later.

Which rather makes me wonder what it'd be like to wade into a CZ in, say, a Corvette tooled-up with cannons.
On the plus side, they're purely kinetic so there's little heat or power draw, which means they pretty-much look after themselves.
On the minus side, any weapon with finite ammo is going to have it's limitations, although you can, of course, synthesise ammo to reload.
And, of course, if your turrets are happily chewing through enemy ships, you've got plenty of time to create more ammo without having to panic about it.

I certainly don't think they're aggressive enough for PvP but they're great fun against NPCs.
And the noise, when you've got a bunch of 'em fitted, really is superb.
Click to expand...

It is, and used wisely they turn the tide of battle very quickly.
But for long-term (aka CZ) combat, there just isn't enough ammo for these.
Of course, with the massive cut-back on CZ missions coming in 2.3 this may be less of a concern.
 

thearmysredneck

T
Corvette with 2 c4 g5 sturdy mount cannons with high yield will 2 shot anaconda power plants in high intensity cz in beta with the hull changes. Hit them from the top or bottom and it like mini nukes to those power plants.
 

Ian Skippy

Ian Skippy
Cannons have very high penetratrion values. In a sense, if you want to 'push above your weight' with small ships or go Big Ship Hunting in larger ships, use cannons over MC.
 

Chris Simon

Chris Simon
sleutelbos said:
Cannons have very high penetratrion values. In a sense, if you want to 'push above your weight' with small ships or go Big Ship Hunting in larger ships, use cannons over MC.
Click to expand...

This^^
Cannons don't suffer from damage reduction against bigger (harder) ships.

Plus they sound awesome. That impact really sounds like it has... impact.
 

13A

13A
Pre engineers, I used to run a FAS with class 3 beams and class 2 cannon for PP sniping.

I've just re-bought a FAS and fitted it with a Beam on top, and engineered MC on the other points. It's good for combat, but I think the original loadout was better. I'll be swapping back to the beam/cannon loadout, but not sure which is going to be the best upgrade for the cannons, either OC or Rapid fire.
 

Hooplah

Hooplah
Fixed corrosive/incendiary frag cannons are my go to weapon of choice for close in combat with large ships. All those rounds hitting in a shotgun pattern at once does some serious damage. Not so good with small ships as only a few rounds will hit. Large efficient beam lasers and fixed long range rail guns (more fun) takes care of the small fry. I smile a lot when interdicted knowing how the battle will end!
 

StiTch

StiTch
13A/24B said:
Pre engineers, I used to run a FAS with class 3 beams and class 2 cannon for PP sniping.

I've just re-bought a FAS and fitted it with a Beam on top, and engineered MC on the other points. It's good for combat, but I think the original loadout was better. I'll be swapping back to the beam/cannon loadout, but not sure which is going to be the best upgrade for the cannons, either OC or Rapid fire.
Click to expand...

OC always.

Don't care about distributor draw on them. You will very much care about jitter though. And likely ammo.
 
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