Print

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

[Thaago]

Well its a bit tricky - the Tachyon lance does have better penetration during its burst, but its raw DPS against armor is only 346 vs 1000 (albeit that 346 comes in 2250 damage bursts). It also has .75 damage/flux, vs 2 damage/flux for the HIL.

Against say a 1500 armor dominator or paragon, a HIL does 25% damage at the start, rapidly increasing as armor gets cut away. A Tachyon lance does 33.3% damage at start, again increasing as armor is stripped. So it has a lead, but that lead is not enough to bring the total dps after the burst nor the flux for armor stripped up to par.

Vs hull the HIL now has 500 dps and 1 damage/flux, but realistically both penetrate residual armor completely, so its 500 dps vs 346 at better efficiency.

Not to say Tachyon Lances are bad: they are fantastic, much more capable of overloading shields than the HIL, and worth every bit of their price tag in OP, cost, and rarity. But as a pure anti armor, anti-hull tool the HIL is superior, as it should be as a specialist weapon. (But then again, as you noted, the Tachyon lance is good enough in most circumstances).

[intrinsic_parity]

My philosophy has been to go for the 'good enough vs armor and better vs shields' load outs as opposed to the 'good enough vs shields and better vs armor' because armor only needs to be destroyed once while shields need to be repeatedly overcome, and shield damage also ties into the flux battle which is the core of combat, while armor penetration does not help the flux battle. This has served we well, but the beauty of the game is that there are many different viable play styles. It's certainly fun to obliterate pirates and pathers with insane HE. As more end game content is added, I'm sure the best load outs will change, and we will get to figure these things out again.

I definitely agree that range bands are an important consideration. Pretty much the only reason I still use the heavy mauler is to match HVD range on eagles/falcons, and I usually complement them with beams since they all have ~1000 range.

[Thaago]

I was always on the 'kinetics/anti-shield are better' bandwagon, but I've been mounting a lot more anti-armor and anti-hull lately and been getting even better results.

It might mean that I just don't have enough strike missiles, but when I go heavy kinetic the enemy just doesn't die fast enough. With more HE and/or high dps hull crackers, it takes a bit longer to push the enemy flux up but the kill is so much faster. If I'm going through the work of fluxing out an enemy, I want to do some real damage on top.

This could also be a result of me almost always going heavy combat skills: I can safely sacrifice some weapons that would help the 'flux duel' because only a very very rare enemy officer, in a unusually well equipped ship, could possibly win a flux duel with my own ship. And also the fact that as often as possible I'm attacking vulnerable ships that are under fire from my allies (and the same goes for my allies, I order them to gang up on lone targets). If the ship is already high on flux kinetic weapons are a bit of a waste.

For example, my current Eagle loadout is: 2x heavy autocannon, 1x heavy mortar, 2x phase lance, 1x ion beam, 3x lrpd, 2x pd, ITU, IPDAI, Hard Shields, and turret gyros. A few months ago I would absolutely go 3x HAC, but I'm simply getting better results with the heavy mortar in there in real combat.

[intrinsic_parity]

Any time I have 3 same size ballistic slots, I go 2 kinetic 1 HE. It used to be mostly 2xHVD + mauler but now I often do 2x HAC + mortar. When I go for HVD, I generally compliment with beams to match 1000 range, but I did try phase lances with he HAC's (I think because thaago mentioned them in another post), and was pleasantly surprised, at least for a player ship.

I generally still outfit the AI with lots of kinetics. They are just so much more survivable (because they generally avoid flux trouble). For the same reason, I love to use annihilators inAI load outs because they are zero flux HE damage and the AI uses them quite ammo efficiently as well. My player ship tends to have more finishing power (generally missile/HB aurora or paragon). I like to take the risks required to finish ships myself, and I want my AI companions to keep enemy ships occupied and fluxed so I can swoop in and finish them. I might try mixing in a few more ships with lots of finishing power in my fleet.

[Goumindong]

Yeah, Plasma Cannon kind of needs to be where it's at so it doesn't step on the HIL's toes as far as cracking armor; as is it's a middle of the road, ok-at-everything kind of weapon. Sorry

Don't be sorry. New Plasma Cannon is civilization