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[Anysy]

Ive noticed some kinda weird things when looking at energy weapons - They often dont actually deal as much damage to shields as they generate flux on your own ship. This extends to some other weapons as well, but mostly energy weapons.

It doesnt seem as bad when you look at weapon stats - The most basic example is a tactical laser. A continuous beam that deals 75 damage at the cost of 75 flux. Energy-type damage means its 1:1 - dealing 75 dps while costing you 75 flux/s
A Burst PD laser is slightly worse off - 46 dps for 56 F/s
As an absolute fringe case, the Antimatter Blaster, dealing a staggering 1,000 burst damage, with a flux cost of 1,500 per shot

Moving up to medium lasers, the absolute best case is the Graviton Beam, dealing 100 (KINETIC) dps with 75F/s. Everything is downhill from here - The Heavy Blaster is 400 dps, for 720 F/s.

Heavy lasers are a bit weird - the Autopulse laser seems to be slightly effective flux wise (204dps ,163F/s), and the High Intensity Laser is 200dps/200 F/s.
Then you have the Plasma Cannon, sitting at 562dps, with 900F/s

As it happens, a lot of higher-tech ships will have a strong damage-flux ratio, often in the .6 range, especially with good crew. If im not mistaken, there is a midrange-OP cost hull modification that modifies this as well. Additionally, flux damage generated from energy weapons does not 'permanently' raise flux in a target - It can always be recovered by passive dissipation with the shields up.

All of this put together means that energy weapons are actually kinda terrible at actually killing stuff - Their main tradeoff being their lack of reliance on ammo(excepting antimatter blaster..), and possibly minor range advantage. In some cases, there is also the instant-hit advantage, but for some (pulse lasers, antimatter blaster, etc) this also isnt the face. Yeah, their point defense abilities with perfect-aim are nice and all..

Even many of the ballistic weapons are kinda odd, dealing 1:1 kinetic damage and flux, with their only benefit being kinetic damage In some cases, not even these will deal more damage to flux on high-tech ships sporting good crews, with proper mods..

[Gear]

The one thing I'm guessing you're not considering is that the more flux you have on your ship, the more damage energy weapons do.

"
Energy Weapon Bonus
Energy weapons get a damage bonus equal to the current flux level - more flux, more damage!
Weapons that get this bonus glow to reflect the size of the bonus"

From the manual.

[Zapier]

Without actually bothering to do any in depth study myself, since I guess I just don't seem to care or notice as much, but I'm curious if you're taking into account the added damage energy weapons get at higher flux levels? How much that bonus damage is, I'm not sure but they do more damage with the more flux buildup you have... hence the reason you can optionally increase your own flux via the 'F' key if I'm not mistaken. This, combined with unlimited usage and such is where the real benefits are compared to ballistic weapons... plus they melt armor much better than their ballistic counterparts. Ballistic weapons overlord shielding easier.

Edit: ^^ What he said too.

[Alex]

Additionally, flux damage generated from energy weapons does not 'permanently' raise flux in a target - It can always be recovered by passive dissipation with the shields up.

Quick note here - that just applies to beam weapons, not all energy weapons.

Since weapon-generated flux can dissipate with the shields up, any non-beam shield damage will eventually bring the enemy shields down.

Also: energy weapons get up to a 50% damage bonus depending on the firing ship's flux.

[Dreyven]

I can totally see your point, energy weapons don't really seem worth it,
at least if you compare flux cost and damage.
Although the nearly perfect accurary of some has to be taken into this calculation.

plus they melt armor much better than their ballistic counterparts. Ballistic weapons overlord shielding easier.

well, no...

Energy damage is quite favorable if you have limited mounts, it does the same damage to everything

But ballistic mounts are much more customizable, a high explosive weapon does way better against armor and
a kinetic one is much more effectiv against shields.


BUT! i personally prefer energy weapons, i don't really know how

also i have to note that ships with energy weapons are often more "high tech", they might have more flux vent or capacity
then ships with ballistic mounts

btw, a medusa with hardened shields and good crew is 0.4 flux per damage taken

[Anysy]

hm you guys are right - I completely overlooked those mechanics somehow.

I guess i just.. didnt notice? That my antimatter/mining blasters didnt raise that little flux bar (the one that tends to skyrocket when people shoot kinetic weapons at shields..) I also previously didnt know what F did, as I never saw a particularly good reason to artificially 'damage' myself..

Im getting about 20% bonus (850ish -> 1050ish) per shot of a mining blaster from having as much flux as I can, as opposed to absolutely no flux.  A 20%ish improvement on the dps numbers of the weapons stated in most cases wouldnt make them considerably better - just slightly less.. meh. Definitely doesnt seem 50%, anyway.

Question on this - Is that flux on firing, or flux on initial charging? For instance antimatter blasters cost 1500 flux to fire, and they fire at the end of a delay. Do they deal additional damage based on the energy when I click, or when they eventually get enough energy to fire? (in some cases, this is a DRASTIC difference.. Try fitting one or two on a frigate :p)

Oh yeah, and silly question - Why are antimatter blasters so out of their class as far as burst goes? Nothing in the medium category even comes close to matching an antimatter blaster.

ninja-edit as dreyven posted before me
perfect accuracy and such are really good stats as far as a space shooter game goes.
Certain ballistic weapons are of 'explosive', which deal significantly better damage vs armor, meaning I could certainly see reasoning for both kinetic and explosive ballistic weapons..

Energy weapons are indeed 'jack of all trades' status, they deal average damage to basically everything.. I am just not sure why their numbers overall seem... meh. On the other hand, perfect accuracy makes for amazing point defense, especially given their range. Against larger targets, though.. I am not sure if energy weapons maintain being a strong weapons choice

And yeah, one of the mods I am running includes ships with .3 BASE flux/damage ratios. stuff gets kinda silly with numbers like that.

[Dreyven]

Oh yeah, and silly question - Why are antimatter blasters so out of their class as far as burst goes? Nothing in the medium category even comes close to matching an antimatter blaster.
Just cause there are no really slow firing energy weapons in the medium class... yet i think this is good... weapons with too much burst will just get abused for hit& run tactics instead of having real fights (already happening with antimatter)

ninja-edit as dreyven posted before me
perfect accuracy and such are really good stats as far as a space shooter game goes.
it really is nice, especially against fighter wings... tactical lasers for example never seem to miss

Certain ballistic weapons are of 'explosive', which deal significantly better damage vs armor, meaning I could certainly see reasoning for both kinetic and explosive ballistic weapons..
yes, the more mounts you have on a ship, the more beneficial it gets to have ballistic mounts, you can just mix the damage types and fire what is more effective

Energy weapons are indeed 'jack of all trades' status, they deal average damage to basically everything.. I am just not sure why their numbers overall seem... meh. On the other hand, perfect accuracy makes for amazing point defense, especially given their range. Against larger targets, though.. I am not sure if energy weapons maintain being a strong weapons choice
well, some of the energy point defense still is kinda meh, they don't deal enough damage (the small PD Burst laser is really good though)

And yeah, one of the mods I am running includes ships with .3 BASE flux/damage ratios. stuff gets kinda silly with numbers like that.
yes, it actually get's silly with that... with my .4 ratio medusa, the way to fight an enemy ship is to get close and let him build up flux by shooting you as much as he wants, when he is nearly full you just finish him cause you are nowhere max

Fact is, there are only a few energy weapons that seem worthwhile...
for me it is:
small PD Burst laser
Tactical laser
Pulse laser (only on the hyperion frigate because of awesome stats)
graviton beam (still kinda meh because it doesn't raise the little bar of the enemy and so doesn't really do anything at all on its own)
maybe the PD burst laser...
high intensity is just meh...
(haven't tried many big ones yet...)

[Rygart]

Energy weapons tear things apart. A single burst from a plasma cannon is enough to overload most ship shields and force them to shut down weapons to vent flux. In that short time, I can fire another burst while having my other laser based weapons on auto to turn any ships below Capital to space dust. The higher tier weapons really do pay out in the end. The low tier weapons...I have a problem with those...they are incredibly weak and often do nothing to a shield but will steadily inflict pain when the armor is stripped away.

It feels as though energy weapons are more mid game over starter. At the start, it's much easier on the nerves to begin with ballistics and missiles.

[Anysy]

I settled on the medium mining blaster on my hyperion. I am not sure about the pulse lasers.. I dismissed them, because I didnt want to spend the time doing dps, in favor of alpha.

And maybe so - Perhaps high-burst outliers need to be removed, in favor of pure dps weapons.. However that type of design decision belongs in the hands of someone other than me

[Dreyven]

The mining blaster is ofcourse not a bad choice, i just felt that the pulse laser is a better choice because of it's high firerate and accurary,
it's way better at dealing with fighters (especially when you want to erase them before they can return to a carrier)
i also thought about 4 tactical lasers, but that would render me useless against some destroyers and all cruisers because of their low damage output,
although i would be waaay better against frigates and fighters while saving huge amounts of OP for hull mods (and i probably wouldn't need flux vents or capacitors)

[AdmiralMaelstrom]

In the end it doesn't matter because "...if you find yourself in a fair fight you have done something horribly, horribly wrong."-United States Air Force FTM

[Zapier]

plus they melt armor much better than their ballistic counterparts. Ballistic weapons overlord shielding easier.

well, no...

Energy damage is quite favorable if you have limited mounts, it does the same damage to everything

But ballistic mounts are much more customizable, a high explosive weapon does way better against armor and
a kinetic one is much more effectiv against shields.

Well, yes they do. In the general meaning most ballistic weapons, which tend to be kinetics (I wasn't going into specifics about fragmentations, etc.) deal 200% to shields and 50% to armor, whereas energy weapons are 100% all around, which means they do indeed melt armor better than 'most' of their ballistic counterparts. That's the one word I should have included. Most. Energy weapons will be better against armor than fragmentation and kinetic ballistic weapons... explosive is definitely the armor shredder, but that's 1 of 3 types.

[Anysy]

4 tactical lasers, but that would render me useless against some destroyers and all cruisers because of their low damage output,
although i would be waaay better against frigates and fighters while saving huge amounts of OP for hull mods (and i probably wouldn't need flux vents or capacitors)

Yeah, I definitely did consider tactical lasers.. Im just really hesitant to leave my squishy frigate in harms way for long enough to dps as opposed to burst. I learned earlier today that If I let most of a MIRV hit, (multiple independent reentry vehicle.. ) the hyperion actually just dies instantly.

Also, mining blasters have the totally awesome sideffect of virtually instakilling fighters if you hit.. But I totally didnt consider pulse lasers as being better at anti-fighter work. And probably anti-missile as well, when you get swarmed..

[Doom101]

Now im no expert at this game or anything but i do my flying in a Medusa, i left in the pulse lasers made all the other small slots PD lasers ( scatter from the junk pirates mod) and my two universals have IR Pulse lasers in them, this makes the ship entirely ammo free which i love. Also i can easily get behind or on any side of and completely destroy cruisers alone and with great ease often not taking a single hit except occasionally on approach, the high flux of the Medusa let me hammer away at ships with all 4 of my pulse lasers for quite some time often i don't even need to vent or stop firing to kill most crusiers, now i haven't tried this on any capital ships but pretty much everything i have faced so far has simply melted away in front of me. So in my experience at least pulse lasers are definitely capable of dishing out major damage with very little threat to your own flux.

i also have used mining blasters, heavy blasters and several other energy weapons to great effect in the same way.

[Synchrony]

Personally I love energy weapons, mostly because I hate limited ammo. Despite being able to afford a whole fleet I've been playing through the campaign using only a Hyperion or a Tempest solo against much larger fleets that I couldn't possibly kill with limited ammo. Using pulse lasers on a frigate I've never had an issue overcoming the shields of slightly larger ships. I do find that energy weapons require the use of more vents than ballistic weapons however.