Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Dark.Revenant]

Well *** me for trying then.

[Thaago]

Well *** me for trying then.

Aw cmon man, you know that if it was crap we just would have said nothing. The analysis is useful enough that people want to improve it. Or find post hoc ways of making their favorite weapons look better (certainly not what I'm doing, certainly).

[Dark.Revenant]

I wasted enough time on it that I have to either completely abandon that train of thought forever or quit my job.  I'm choosing the former.

[TaLaR]

It's not that having a universal metric to compare weapons by would not be useful, but it would have to be way more complex (and would apply with caveats even then). This one does not take a lot of things into account: range, hit-strength, projectile speed & spread, windup, vents limit,hard-vs-soft flux(which is the reason grav beam looks decent). And stuff others mentioned.

Also some ships have special requirements. Shield bypassers like phase frigates or Hyperion pretty much care only about combination of high hit-strength and projectile speed with low/no windup.

[Eji1700]

I think anything more than a general weapon tier list isn't really worth the overall effort because availability is a big factor at the end of the day.  Knowing how to combine them is often a lot more important than "here's one weapon that's crazy good!".  There's some exceptions (sabots come to mind, and harpoons are almost always good), but I think getting into the weeds of it is just going to lead to a lot of frustration.

To me you basically have 3 metrics.  How strong  is it, how easy is it to find, how easy is it to use?

How strong is it- Whooole lot of factors here. Not just raw power but efficiency as well.  Sabots/most fighters are obviously very strong, while something less obvious like..i dunno...graviton beams, can still be quite good in the right situation.

How easy it to find- if you're only getting them off of corpses and rarely in the shop I think that matters.  Scarcity is a factor in game.

How easy is it to use- this ranges from stuff like torpedoes where it can literally be hard to land a proper hit, to certain weapons which just have difficult to meet demands (a plasma cannon for example requires a large energy, has travel time, tons of OP, and gobbles flux).  Antimatter blasters also come to mind.  On the other end of the spectrum you're basically looking at things like LRM/Salamanders which you just put on autofire and forget about while throwing in any slot that'll take it.

I think grading weapons on those sorts of factors (like a grade in each category) is going to give you a much better idea of how the weapons lie rather than trying to break down individual stats or find a way to compare across all metrics (which is very difficult).

[Thaago]

BTW, I'm using Falcons to great effect right now as essentially 'super destroyers' in a fast attack fleet. Something I didn't really appreciate before is that Falcons are on average faster than Hammerheads and Sunders thank to their system, while having cruiser range. The AI behaves brilliantly with this loadout (and its what I'm flying too):

2x Heavy Autocannon, 2x Phase Beam, 4x PD Laser, Advanced Optics, ITU, Flux resistant conduits. Max Vents, a few caps.

Built for the 800 (*1.4) range band, though the kinetics will hit first for a bit because the medium energy turrets are set further back on the ship.

I don't know why I've thought Phase Beams are bad, but with kinetics to back them up and advanced optics, they are very effective. Armor penetration is equivalent to a 625 damage shot, making them effective against even the toughest ships. And they are fantastic at popping fighters - a single shot will destroy a Warthog. Was fighting against a pair of skilled Mora's, 1 a 1x Broadsword 2x Warthog, the other the Khopesh variant, with me and an AI controlled Falcon in the area - and we stomped all the wings with ease.

Only downside is the deployment cost of 15: a little pricey for their firepower. Still, I'm consistently happy with their performance.

[Megas]

I don't know why I've thought Phase Beams are bad, but with kinetics to back them up and advanced optics, they are very effective. Armor penetration is equivalent to a 625 damage shot, making them effective against even the toughest ships. And they are fantastic at popping fighters - a single shot will destroy a Warthog. Was fighting against a pair of skilled Mora's, 1 a 1x Broadsword 2x Warthog, the other the Khopesh variant, with me and an AI controlled Falcon in the area - and we stomped all the wings with ease.

There are not too many ships that can do that.  Falcon and Eagle are practically it.  Medusa used to do that for great effect in 0.7.x, but it does not seem very effective for Medusa in 0.8.x.  Doom with old cloak was good at it, but with new cloak, Doom will take too much damage if it tries that.

If only Advanced Optics was easier to get.  I eventually find one in loot (few enemies use that hullmod).

Flux use of phase lances (and other weapons) can get high at a bad time.  I had Eagles overloaded when they had low-to-mid flux, then the needlers and phase beams all fired at once, flux shoots up very high quickly, and it gets overloaded in one or two quick hits.

[Wyvern]

[Phase Beam] armor penetration is equivalent to a 625 damage shot, making them effective against even the toughest ships.

Actually, it's 500 armor penetration.  Which is still quite good; the rest of your argument holds even with the correct number.  Burst beam armor penetration values can't be found in the in-game codex - see this post for details.

[Thaago]

[Phase Beam] armor penetration is equivalent to a 625 damage shot, making them effective against even the toughest ships.

Actually, it's 500 armor penetration.  Which is still quite good; the rest of your argument holds even with the correct number.  Burst beam armor penetration values can't be found in the in-game codex - see this post for details.

My bad! I thought it was a 1 second beam at 1250 without thinking it might be longer. Thanks.


@Megas

True! I guess it really is a Falcon/Eagle only build.

I also like Phase Lances on Paragons because they let them burst down frigates that try for the flank. And anti-fighter as well.

[Aieonae]

  no tempest and omen in the ranks yet?

They can be deadly if you can amass them correctly.
(a lightly maintenance conjunction with a very small signature to fool the enemy to swap you, ohhh then they realise they are dead!)

So far the most deadly to value I have used(with captain skills), a couple of ion cannon reapers and swarm missiles would make you a "awesome" fleet, just that you can't really fly far thou.

As for the salvage rig, cargo, fuel and fleet transport do give they some slag they shouldn't be class for they fighting prowess. They are suppose to support your fleet not to sent off as cannon fodder XD.

[AxleMC131]

Destroyers and frigates are still to come.

And they have been discussed on the Discord before. Can't remember what the Omen is, but I think the Salvage Rig is EX since it can't really be compared to anything, and the Tempest is probably S because it's just stupidly powerful.

[TaLaR]

Tempest is probably S because it's just stupidly powerful.

Can it solo sim Paragon skill-less when player-piloted? Hyperion and Afflictor can, Shade at least gets close to the goal (likely to run out of CR before Paragon is dead). Tempest can't scratch it. Tempest may be the best frigate for AI, but it's performance ceiling is way lower than what real best frigates can do.

[AxleMC131]

Those grades are going by what I'm pretty sure I remember DR saying, not my own opinions.

Although, I will admit I used to think the Tempest was overpriced, but nowadays having used it a bunch more, I agree that it's insanely powerful for its weight and cost. A Hyperion might be able to solo a capital ship, but the Tempest can solo cruisers for one fifth the logistical profile.

[Dark.Revenant]

The Tempest is definitely S.  Hyperion is more like B++.

[Sutopia]

  I have no idea how tempest can get S
The drone has been significantly nerfed thus cannot do much to anything bigger than destroyers.
Two medium mediums are great but not perfect; it got the speed to take the initiative but still cannot solo something bigger than itself.
To sum it up, it acts very similar to aurora, I'd at most give it an A+ for it's devastating power against unshielded frigates or to solo the domain probe defending drone thingy, but not much more than that. (Or even an A- for AI using them stupidly well while human cannot get to it's max)