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Author Topic: Your opinion for best ballistic weapon  (Read 10323 times)

Thaago

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Re: Your opinion for best ballistic weapon
« Reply #15 on: January 31, 2018, 05:20:33 PM »

Heavy Mortar is a shockingly effective weapon against sub-capital armor if you can hit the target (which can be hard due to its slow velocity - ordinance expertise 1 is really good for it). Good DPS, good efficiency, very low OP costs, and the per shot damage is still ok. For long range work the Heavy Mauler is better, but if you want to be closer it is a superior weapon.

Its not the best ballistic weapon (I'd vote railgun), it is imo the most under-rated weapon.
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TJJ

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Re: Your opinion for best ballistic weapon
« Reply #16 on: January 31, 2018, 05:46:00 PM »

Light Mortar + Vulcan cannon for ultimate hull ripping DakkaDakka :D

Back when we had the skill that reduced OP cost of weapons (I forget the version/skill name), you could make mounting these small weapons free.
Generally wasting slots on unused weapons isn't great, but the Onslaught lacked flux dissipation to utilize its light mounts for very long anyhow.
If you got overwhelmed at range, and your flux ran high, you could burn drive into their face, switch to point blank weapons flux efficient weapons, and keep up the DPS.

Only problem was you'd tend to get ripped apart by the inevitable point blank explosion!
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Megas

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Re: Your opinion for best ballistic weapon
« Reply #17 on: January 31, 2018, 07:13:35 PM »

Ships don't really have enough hull for that to matter and generally once you're shooting at hull things like DPS and OP efficiency don't really matter because ships are disabled. The tough part is punching through armor and shields and well... there isn't much reason to have a Thumper instead of another Heavy Mortar
The reason is speed.  Thumper can hit more easily when Arbalest and Heavy Mortar alone can miss due to slow, somewhat inaccurate, and synchronized attacks.

Generally, I would use two Arbalests and one Heavy Mortar (when I cannot use two HVDs and one Heavy Mauler).  Occasionally, I use Arbalest, Heavy Mortar, and Thumper.

People tend to think that unarmored ship equals dead.  I do not always agree with that.  Ship is disabled when it is disabled, not as soon as it lost armor, if there is nothing ready to finish it off as soon as armor is lost.

Heavy Mortar is a shockingly effective weapon against sub-capital armor if you can hit the target (which can be hard due to its slow velocity - ordinance expertise 1 is really good for it). Good DPS, good efficiency, very low OP costs, and the per shot damage is still ok. For long range work the Heavy Mauler is better, but if you want to be closer it is a superior weapon.

Its not the best ballistic weapon (I'd vote railgun), it is imo the most under-rated weapon.
Heavy Mortar is the only medium option if player does not have enough Heavy Maulers.  I use Heavy Mortars all the time because they are one of the few weapons that are common, and one of the fewer still that are relatively effective (like Hellbore and Mark IX).

I would call Arbalest more under-rated.  Yes, there are better alternatives, but Arbalest is very common, unlike Railgun, and effective enough.  I use it when I only have Heavy Mortar for HE because the ranges match.  Sometimes, I use Arbalests when I have rarer weapons available because I do not want to reload a game as soon as I lose a ship with Railguns, Needlers, or HVDs on it, and weapons are lost forever.
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FreedomFighter

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Re: Your opinion for best ballistic weapon
« Reply #18 on: February 12, 2018, 04:23:16 AM »

I though i am doing something weird when i get attach to Arbalest, and Heavy Mortar. Both aren't looking fancy but it get the job done. It is quite low-cost effective weapon that can go on any ships and common enough in most market/loot.
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Goumindong

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Re: Your opinion for best ballistic weapon
« Reply #19 on: February 12, 2018, 08:35:44 PM »

People tend to think that unarmored ship equals dead.  I do not always agree with that.  Ship is disabled when it is disabled, not as soon as it lost armor, if there is nothing ready to finish it off as soon as armor is lost

It really does though. Either you’re in a small combat where the minor advantage snowballs and making sure you have that matters more than exploiting it. Or you’re in large combat and are killing things too fast with the exception of capitals... which get finished off last in a hail of emp damage locking your weapons
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Megas

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Re: Your opinion for best ballistic weapon
« Reply #20 on: February 13, 2018, 05:11:21 AM »

It really does though. Either you’re in a small combat where the minor advantage snowballs and making sure you have that matters more than exploiting it. Or you’re in large combat and are killing things too fast with the exception of capitals... which get finished off last in a hail of emp damage locking your weapons
Not always.  I have been in enough combats where chewing through hull took a not insignificant amount of time, or another enemy covers a helpless ship in time to save it and it recovers (albeit without armor).  It is not common, but not that rare or unheard of.
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Schwartz

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Re: Your opinion for best ballistic weapon
« Reply #21 on: February 13, 2018, 06:18:27 AM »

'Best' also depends on function, ship type etc.

The most obvious example would be arming an Afflictor with 2xLAG 2xRailgun or 2xLAG 2xDual AC. You have 4 hardpoints that we'll assume are in the same weapon group. For the former, the weapons behave differently. Accuracy is largely wasted on a hardpoint when coupled with LAG, while Railgun wind-up hurts phase ships. Dual AC has comparable characteristics to LAG and accuracy issues aren't really any when you use it in a hardpoint and for a phase ship at ~500 range, which isn't intended to shoot down fighters. Weapon niches are fun. ;)
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Morgan Rue

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Re: Your opinion for best ballistic weapon
« Reply #22 on: February 13, 2018, 03:15:03 PM »

The second biggest obstacle to HAG, after rarity, is flux cost.  Since the weakening of skills, it is hard for unskilled ships to fire heavy weapons for long.  Flux cost of HAG may or may not be high enough to prevent continuous fire.  Mark IX is probably the most an unskilled ship can handle.

Hellbore is terrible for shooting down fast and numerous targets.  Some ships do not need to worry about that weakness because they have other things that cover it.  For example, Legion has fighters to take out the chaff.  Since Hellbore lost half of its DPS, HAG is decent when raw DPS and ease-of-use are more useful than armor penetration, and the ship cannot use Mjolnir for whatever reason.

If there is one ballistic that seems superfluous, it is Storm Needler.  Despite being much-improved in 0.8.x, it still inferior to Mjolnir.  Storm Needler has less range, costs more OP.  It is probably less effective against hull now than before with minimum armor.
Storm Needler is great if you need to break Battlestation shields. I had a Dominator that used two of them and some missiles. With maxxed out flux systems(and no SO) it could fire them for extended periods of time.
« Last Edit: February 13, 2018, 03:25:17 PM by Morgan Rue »
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Thaago

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Re: Your opinion for best ballistic weapon
« Reply #23 on: February 13, 2018, 04:52:18 PM »

I'm surprised: I recently found a good use for the HAG. TLDR: DPS + overcoming minimum armor to do hull damage.

My current Dominator (XIV) flagship has Hellbore + HAG, dual flaks + read/side vulcans, 3x railguns, and 3x sabot pods + racks + skills. It doesn't have infinite endurance but it will punch out 3-4 capitals with no damage before running dry, which is good enough for me at this stage in my playthrough. After running out of missiles its a bit HE heavy, but eh. Can't all be perfect.

I originally was using dual Hellbores, but found that the raw DPS was too low and I wasn't properly mauling my targets in an overload. Not only were the kills taking longer, but I was using more sabots per kill. Mixing the HAG and Hellbore gives the best of both worlds: The Hellbore cracks open the armor on the initial shots, and then the DPS of the HAG takes over. Against smaller threats - destroyers and shield cruisers - the constant pressure of the HAG keeps the enemy from shield flickering the railguns. Against larger targets, the minimum armor damage reduction is a pain for chewing through hull, but the HAG has enough damage per shot to ignore it.

I should note that I don't have any Mjolnirs - my memory is that they are the ubergun for large ballistic, though I haven't done a direct comparison in a while.
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Megas

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Re: Your opinion for best ballistic weapon
« Reply #24 on: February 13, 2018, 05:14:31 PM »

Mjolnir is still the "ubergun", but with higher flux cost, you must get everything that improves your flux stats and decrease flux usage.  For example, get Loadout Design 3, Power Grid Modulation 3, and probably some Defensive Systems (if they reduce shields' flux use).  If you cannot get all of the useful skills, your ships will not have the flux stats to use Mjolnir for long.  If you want to use Mjolnir, you need to build your character specifically for it (not unlike building a carrier specialist, except with different skills).  HAG does not use as much flux and may be a bit more sustainable with a less dedicated character.

HAG is decent if you want to pray-and-spray from medium-long range, or if your kinetics are HVDs.  HVDs and Hellbore combo is terribly slow and hard-to-hit faster and/or smaller targets.  HVDs and HAGs are more forgiving to use.  HAGs will wreck unshielded enemies.

I forgot if Storm Needler needs as much flux as Mjolnir.  Since Storm Needler lost perfect accuracy (cannot easily focus on a single point on target), plus the addition of Advanced Countermeasures (which enemies can get to effectively turn kinetic into fragmentation if it hits armor), and addition of minimum armor, Storm Needler is not useful as an all-powerful gun that can crush everything.  The one ship that might have the flux stats to use Storm Needler (Conquest) is not sturdy enough to brawl close-up against a battleship.
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Drokkath

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Re: Your opinion for best ballistic weapon
« Reply #25 on: February 13, 2018, 06:02:15 PM »

When it comes to default ballistic weapons I still like using chainguns, light dual machine guns and/or vulcan cannons. Helps big time to have ammofeed or temporal shell. Former being quicker and seemingly more lethal.

Always been a fan of using heavy automatic weaponry to mow foes down properly by the dozens. However my taste of weaponry has lately begun to shift towards weapons that require aiming and precision first to land a very damaging hit while me and my foe are still flying about aka in motion.

Weapons such as a Mjolnir and Heavy Autocannon combo I found to be an awesome ballistic blast from afar. It's the most effective on ships with a few medium and large mounts.
« Last Edit: February 15, 2018, 08:52:11 AM by Drokkath »
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FooF

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Re: Your opinion for best ballistic weapon
« Reply #26 on: February 19, 2018, 04:21:09 PM »

I've been in love with the Heavy Mortar for awhile now, especially since many of many of my ballistic ships go the SO route. When range isn't an issue, the Heavy Mortar is extremely flux efficient relative to its armor-piercing power. It's actually the middle-ground between the Heavy Mauler and the Assault Chaingun: it just has terrible accuracy at range. That it isn't a flux hog, has a low OP cost, is cheap and ubiquitous...I throw them on SO Hammerheads all the time to great effect. It isn't the "best" by any stretch but it's a darn good weapon all things considered.

The Heavy Mauler is still king in my book, though. Above-average range, above-average damage per shot, not ridiculously expensive to shoot, good accuracy, etc. It's just reliable in a lot of situations. Kinetics has the Light Needler, which is a medium weapon in a small mount. That it doesn't do any appreciable armor damage is its one glaring flaw, though its rarity is also something to consider.

I'm not too keen on the Mjolnir. It's the Heavy Blaster/Plasma Cannon of the Ballistics tree. Yes, it's absurdly powerful but only a few ships can afford to fire it for any real length of time. As a center-piece of a Cruiser or Capital, sure, it's a fantastic weapon but getting it to work with the rest of the loudout is often more trouble than it's worth.
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Voyager I

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Re: Your opinion for best ballistic weapon
« Reply #27 on: February 20, 2018, 02:30:04 PM »

It really does though. Either you’re in a small combat where the minor advantage snowballs and making sure you have that matters more than exploiting it. Or you’re in large combat and are killing things too fast with the exception of capitals... which get finished off last in a hail of emp damage locking your weapons
Not always.  I have been in enough combats where chewing through hull took a not insignificant amount of time, or another enemy covers a helpless ship in time to save it and it recovers (albeit without armor).  It is not common, but not that rare or unheard of.

I'm with you on this one, especially with the general reduction to offensive capabilities with the skill nerfs.  Chewing through an Enforcer's hull isn't a trivial task, and the AI is quite good at protecting vulnerable fleetmates and keeping damaged facings away from the enemy.

Like, Thumpers are still bad, but claiming that ships are effectively dead as soon as you breach their armor is not a sound statement.
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Goumindong

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Re: Your opinion for best ballistic weapon
« Reply #28 on: February 20, 2018, 02:51:15 PM »

Well not really. The general order of battle will be to move in and progress up the ranks, killing small ships first and then moving onto more difficult to kill ones. (This is why the monitor is so good).  So in any fight where you’re not massively over-firepowered to deal with destroyers is one in which you’ve got problems... or one in which that ship is likely to be one of the last ships alive. And at that point you get to swarm it and EMP/damage lock it.
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Drokkath

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Re: Your opinion for best ballistic weapon
« Reply #29 on: February 20, 2018, 08:12:56 PM »

Chewing through an Enforcer's hull isn't a trivial task

Aghh! :D So true, I've lost the count of how many Enforcers I've taken out and each time trying to crack one apart takes some effort. Especially when my main ship is dedicated to taking down shields and then blasting into the surface of an opponent's vessel. It's one of those moments you wish you had more armor demolishing weapons mounted instead of the shield-breakers or something along those lines.

Not that big of a deal for me anymore as I'm grown used to that some ships just take longer to deal with but satisfying once they blow up.
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