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Author Topic: What is everybody's favorite weapon  (Read 16384 times)

Tackywheat1

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Re: What is everybody's favorite weapon
« Reply #15 on: February 21, 2020, 11:28:20 AM »

I have so many favorites....
Starting from the energies in order of size:
tactical laser
burst defense laser
graviton beam
ion beam
pulse laser
heavy blaster
Plasma cannon
Tachyon lance
Ballistics:
LMG
Vulcan
Railgun
Heavy auto
assault chain gun
Dual flak
hellbore
Mk IX auto
Missiles (all sizes):
Reaper (small and pod)
Sabot
Hurricane
Locust
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Mondaymonkey

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Re: What is everybody's favorite weapon
« Reply #16 on: February 21, 2020, 12:13:19 PM »

Please don't use TL as a shorthand for clarity's sake.

Sir, yes, sir!
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Almost forget to Say my own words: I always diversify weapons, so there are many leaders in each role. However, if I had to choose single most-favorite gun, that would be a graviton beam. Range+efficiency+kinetic. Low DPS, you say? Use MORE graviton beams. The only weakness - it would never kill anyone. :-\
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Aereto

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Re: What is everybody's favorite weapon
« Reply #17 on: February 21, 2020, 12:17:29 PM »

Based on my playstyle, well...

Ballistic
Spoiler
Small: Vulcan
High rate of fire can shred missiles and torpedoes, more so with point defense AI or Advanced Countermeasures skill. Its short range is its drawback, but can be alleviated with integrated targeting unit. Deadly to fighters that got too close, and any ship with shields and armor down.

Medium: Hypervelocity Driver/ Dual-Flak
Long range at 1000 su, can reliably deliver hard flux against shields, and punishes anyone tanking with armor with EMP despite dealing not as reliably as energy weapons. Dual-Flak reliably destroys what would have been a dangerous lone piranha wing, or at the least a lot of annihilator rockets. Burst PD lasers cannot deal with those things.

Large: Hephaestus Assault Gun
A compromise between fire rate, accuracy, and flux, and can bust armor reliably if the Hellbore misses against smaller targets. As much as I like Mjolnir's energy damage and EMP, its flux demands require some compromises but not as much as a Storm Needler's.
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Energy
Spoiler
Small: LR PD Laser/Antimatter blaster/Ion Cannon
LR PD Lasers have the range to at least take down the sabot missiles before they detonate, but needs point defense AI to deal with flares and prevent wasting time selecting targets. Antimatter blasters are the typical weapon of choice for alpha-strike designs, usually with phase ships since they usually run out of time before they run out of ammo. Ion Cannon is short range, but in the right ship, it can also disable weapons at high flux to give the shields breathing room.

Medium: Pulse Laser/Phase Lance/Ion Beam
Pulse Laser consistently builds hard flux while being forgiving to flux use unlike the heavy blaster. Phase Lance is usually better in player hands, since the spike damage is better use when shields are down or trying to sneak damage past shield cover. Ion Beam has 1000 su, and sacrifices dealing significant damage for significantly annoying ships under heavy flux pressure or lacking shields with constant EMP.

Large: Tachyon Lance/Plasma Cannon
Longer range than a phase lance, charges longer than a phase lance, hits harder than a phase lance, and delivers EMP unlike the phase lance. Plasma Cannon consistently fires damage over the Autopulse Laser, and can build flux more reliably.
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Missile:
Spoiler
Small: Salamander
EMP missile that refills in battle. It can't destroy like harpoons or any torpedo or deliver flux spikes like sabots, but it ensures a ship stays as a missile threat. Leave the smaller sabots and torpedoes to fighters.

Medium: Harpoon/Sabot/Reaper
Harpoon and Sabot has more ammo as a medium, delivering payloads in longer fights. Reapers are great at alpha strikes, especially in the hands of Dominator or Doom as a salvo is more likely to hit unless the enemy fleet has significant point defense.

Large: Locust/Hurricane
Locust missiles can flood PD screens lacking flak, destroy bombs and fighters through volume, and can be used to finish off overloaded breached ships with extreme DPS per salvo. Hurricanes are second best as it quickly destroys armor or more difficult to dodge when the smaller missiles are fired as a spread.
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Gregorovitch

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Re: What is everybody's favorite weapon
« Reply #18 on: February 21, 2020, 12:43:34 PM »

.......but being a new player I'm trying to get a grasp on which weapons work and which don't.

Being a fellow noob player my 2c are:

1. Any weapon used in the right way in the right context on the right ship is going to be x10 as effective as any other weapon used in the wrong way in the wrong context on the wrong ship.

2. As a rookie pilot you are guaranteed to start out using the wrong weapons in the wrong way in the wrong contexts on the wrong ships 90%+ of the time.

Realising this, eventually, I implemented the following survival strategy (which seems to working out  OK so far):

1. Hired all the merc pilot's I could find that weren't timid or reckless, mostly steady with a one or two aggressive.
2. Took skills exclusively from the Technology, Industry and Leadership sections, ignored the combat tree.

[The principle behind this is that I have 10 merc pilots with 20 combat skills each, so what do I need combat skills for? Whereas the Industry, Technology and Leadership trees amplify my whole fleet's power, all my colonies' profitability and my scavenging efficiency.]

3. Just collected and stored as many different types of weapon as possible and let the game choose loadouts form all the ships other than my own on the principle the game knows better than I do what should go on what ship and my merc pilots will know how to use them.
4. Started playing with different loadouts and personal tactics on my own ship. I fly an Eagle at the moment but I own four Paragons. I don't fly a Paragon 'cos I have no combat skills and my merc pilots have 20 each so it would be a waste even if I was any good. I've tried different loadouts on my Eagle until I found a combo that enabled to to make reasonable contribution given my pathetic piloting skills and learned how to manage flux on it by switching certain weapons on and off as required so I could actually survive through the majority of battles.

If you are interested the Eagle has three big hardpoints on the front and a couple of big turrets. The game selects "finisher" type weapons for the front guns and some lasers for the offensive turrets. "Finisher" weapons are situational and require split second timing to be effective or so it seems to me. A pilot of my level of incompetence  can neither recognise the situation nor execute the timing. Consequently I fitted two anti-shield guns and one anti-armour gun on the front and left the big lasers on the turrets. Now my lasers do a reasonable job helping out dealing with fighter, bomber and missile attacks on my Paragons on auto-fire but I switch them off when attacking enemies with my front guns as they use a lot of flux it seems, so this way I can duke it out with enemies toe-to-toe far longer, stripping off their shields and armour to help ease their passing even if I don't finish them off myself. I'm sure this is far from optimal but for me at the moment it's manageable and survivable. 
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intrinsic_parity

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Re: What is everybody's favorite weapon
« Reply #19 on: February 21, 2020, 01:18:50 PM »

I generally am looking for weapons to fill three roles that you need to be successful: breaking shields, damaging hull/armor, and point defense.

For breaking shields, the important thing is efficiency. Offenses and defense are coupled here in the sense that taking shield damage reduces your ability to fire your weapons because you have less free flux capacity, and vice versa, dealing damage to enemy shields reduces their ability to shoot back. You want to raise more flux in the enemies ship than in your own meaning the ratio of damage dealt to the enemy vs flux raised in your own ship is super important. Kinetics deal double damage to shields so they effectively have double efficiency which is very strong, but they deal very reduced damage to armor meaning they won't be able to finish things off. When I'm choosing kinetics, I like to choose the highest possible efficiency.
Spoiler
for small kinetics:
the big choice is between railgun and light needlers. Needlers are more efficient but railgun have higher dps and better armor penetration. They're very close in value.
The light dual auto cannon is my budget choice.
The light dual machine gun also has good efficiency but very poor range. It can be useful on safety overrides (SO) ships but otherwise it is relegated to PD.

for medium kinetics:
Heavy needlers are a clear best for me with the highest dps and best efficiency, the only downside is the very high OP cost, but I consider that 100% worthwhile.
The heavy auto cannon: an honorable mention for a good medium kinetic, it will get the job done and I use it where I don't have enough needlers, or where I am very tight on OP.
The heavy machine gun is a decent SO kinetic option but it has too little range to be good on normal ships as an assault weapon.
Another honorable mention to the hyper velocity driver. It trades efficiency and dps for range. You can make some fun sniper load outs with it but its not a great general purpose weapon IMO unless you're looking to match the 1000 range with all your other weapons.

For large kinetics: I'm not a huge fan of any of them. The Mark IX and the storm needler are both not bad, but I prefer to just get my kinetic damage from medium/small slots and use the large slots for anti armor damage.
Storm needler: a good choice if you want to crush a capital ships shields, but it costs so much flux to fire that it really doesn't work well on most ships with large ballistic slots.
The Mark IX: like a large heavy auto cannon, it gets the job done but it's really not exceptional in any way. I frequently use it to fill slots with decent damage but I'm not super excited about using it.
The gauss cannon: a very specialized sniper weapon that is fairly inefficient but has the longest range in the game. You have to build the ship to use it, you can't just throw it in any slot, but it's good when used properly.
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For breaking armor the important thing is the damage per shot (the damage a single projectile does) and the dps to a lesser extent. The armor damage reduction formula basically reduces the damage more if the damage per shot is less. HE weapons deal double damage to armor making them both more efficient and better at actually penetrating the armor, but energy weapons also generally have high damage per shot. HE weapons also deal half damage to shields making them very bad at shield breaking. Generally you use them as finisher type weapons. I'll just talk about ballistic HE weapons here and then I'll talk about energy weapons later.
Spoiler
Large HE:
The hellebore: the capital crusher. It has an insanely high damage/shot and good efficiency. The downside is that it rarely will hit anything smaller than a cruiser because the shot speed is slow and it has lower dps. I think it's a very good option for dealing with heavy armor and keeping flux cost down, but it's not very good vs smaller ships making it a more of a budget/niche weapon.
Hephaestus assault gun (HAG): has much lower damage per shot but can hit destroyers and also has much higher raw dps. It will be worse against capital ships and better against everything else. I think it's a good all around gun, and probably works well as a 'default' large weapon. I frequently pair it with the Mark IX if I have two large slots to fill.
Devastator:  a PD hybrid, but it is somewhat inconsistent at both dealing HE damage and killing fighters/missiles.

Medium HE:
The big choice is between the heavy mauler and heavy mortar. The Mauler has better armor penetration and range but worse DPS and OP cost. I think I often choose the mortar for smaller ships because it costs less OP, but the mauler has much better range which can be very good as well.
The assault chain gun is mostly limited to SO ships or maybe capitals because of its super high flux cost.

I don't think small HE is any good because the damage per shot is too low. The railgun will always be better IMO.
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Energy weapons don't get any bonuses to shields or armor making them more generalist and generally a little less effective, but high tech ships have more dissipation and capacity which sort of compensates. Usually I think of energy weapons as more anti-armor leaning than anti shield, but they can do both.

Spoiler
Large:
Plasma cannon: the king of large energy for me. It has very good armor penetration, very high dps, and still deals a respectable amount of hard flux damage to shields. The main downside is the enormous flux cost but all of the ships with large energy slots (paragon, odyssey and apogee) have high flux dissipation and can build around it. It doesn't have very good efficiency so it's important to maximize your dissipation when using it.
Tach lance: a close second for me, It's very much an anti-armor weapon with large burst damage but a little lower dps. I use it on the paragon and also sometimes on the sunder. The fact that it is a beam and deals soft flux is a significant downside for me though.
Auto-pulse laser: the anti-shield weapon of large energy. It has noticeably better efficiency than any other energy weapon. The main downside is that it runs out of charges. It sort of requires extended magazines to be good, but overall It's a solid choice, particularly for the AI.
HIL: a support weapon, but it does a huge amount of damage. My main problem with it is that most of the ships than can use it don't have access to weapons that set it up well. If you are fighting pirates with crapy shields it will tear through everything, but if you are fighting remnants with good shields it will struggle.
The Mjolnir cannon is actually energy damage as well even though it is a ballistic weapon. It's something like the plasma cannon with slightly worse anti-armor capability and slightly worse efficiency. I don't use it very often because most of the ships that can mount it don't have a ton of dissipation and also have access to kinetic and HE damage which is more effective.

medium:
the heavy blaster: a HE weapon disguised as an energy weapon. It costs an absurd amount of flux to fire and your loadout has to be built to support it, but it will crush armor. Some ships like the aurora can bully smaller ships shields with it but you will always be at a disadvantage trying to crack shields with it. Its powerful but a bit niche because of the flux requirements.
The pulse laser: the mediocre option. It deals hard flux and has decent dps but has poor range, efficiency and damage/shot. I try to avoid using it on most ships, but it's really the only hard flux that some of the high tech frigates can use.
The phase lance is a baby tach lance, but it costs too much flux to fire for my taste. It's another anti-armor leaning energy weapon since it only deals soft flux. I will use it sometime, but its not my favorite.
Grav beam: the filler. It doesn't cost much flux to fire it provides decent shield pressure so I usually use it to fill slots on ships that don't have much dissipation to spare. It's a support weapon so ships need other things to be effective but it definitely helps finish things off with 1000 range and perfect accuracy as well.

small:
tac laser: another support beam similar to the grav in many respects. A good filler but it does cost a decent bit of flux to fire.
IR pulse laser: i think its pretty bad because of terrible range and low damage, but its the only small hard flux option
Anti-matter blaster: It's basically a missile that costs flux to fire and has no range. It does a lot of damage but the AI is terrible at using it so I consider it pretty niche.
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For PD weapons, there are two major targets: missiles and fighters. Some weapons are good at one and some are good at another.

Spoiler
Flak and vulcans are the best anti missile weapons and burst PD perform decently as well. Vs fighters, the kinetic PD like light/heavy machine guns are good choices and burst PD is also decent. The PD laser/ LRDP laser sort of work but I usually go for a few burst pd rather than a lot of pd lasers. They just don't do enough damage to deal with big swarms of missiles and they don't kill fighter quickly wither. I'll use them to fill slots of I have the OP and dissipation to spare.
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Missiles are basically for huge zero flux alpha damage with a few exceptions.
Spoiler
For large missiles, I usually use locusts as a finisher when ships are running away or just for supplemental dps vs hull. The other large missiles weapons just don't have that much ammo.

For mediums and smalls, I usually use either sabots or reapers. Harpoons are also decent. Sabots are probably the strongest missiles but are only good for cracking shields.
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sogriffin

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Re: What is everybody's favorite weapon
« Reply #20 on: February 21, 2020, 01:35:24 PM »

Wow, such great responses.  I have plenty to read and think about.  I'm sure you guys already know this but this is a great forum filled with such helpful people.
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Daynen

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Re: What is everybody's favorite weapon
« Reply #21 on: February 21, 2020, 07:01:47 PM »

Every weapon was designed for something and is probably good for at least ONE thing it wasn't designed for.  The fun is discovering what each weapon does and how you can take it out of its intended role and succeed with it.

I'm a big fan of the Hephaestus assault gun, for example.  It's a cannon with good fire rate, good range and modest flux buildup that hammers through armor.  It's penalized against shields but given the aforementioned stats it can still put reasonable pressure on them anyway, making it a fairly dependable weapon against most targets and devastating if it gets past shields.  It's a destroyer killer.  Anything smaller than a cruiser likely doesn't have the shield capacity to endure it for long and when their shields finally go down they EVAPORATE beneath the Hephaestus.

The thing you DON'T hear often is how you can use a turreted version and manually sweep through fighter swarms, absolutely demolishing any fighters that don't sport shields and knocking out a few missiles to boot.

One purpose and at least one good trick.  Start with that line of thinking and play around.  You'll find your favorites soon enough.
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pedro1_1

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Re: What is everybody's favorite weapon
« Reply #22 on: February 21, 2020, 07:33:32 PM »

well I need to say that some weapons change can change the whole outcome of a battle(glances at missiles)

but to the weapons:
Small
Balistics
Vulcan as point defence, it can shered the armor and hull of a frigate in the eraly game and is estremally powerfull using IPD-AI.
Railgun because king of small kinetics.
Dual light Autocannon is a strong substitute for railgun on the early game, I like using unsparingly on lashers
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Energy
All of PD lasers are strong but Burst PD laser is the one which I use the most, can benefit from IPD-AI and bnefits from Extended magasines.
Ion cannon is one of my favorites, it can stop a frigate or criple a cruiser, theres is a reason my Odysseys use 3 of those on the broadside.
Tatical Laser is a interesting one, can hit targets at 1000 units and can become the longest range small PD using IPD-AI.
Anti-Mater blaster can change the gameplay for certain ships, or break it.
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Missiles
Sabot because kinetics.
Harpoon because HE.
Anihilator because of how it can remove some of the most dangerous ships on the destroyer class, and it has the same total damage from a single reaper, whitout the extra missiles, it's not as devastating bcause of this but the damage is equal.
Reaper because capitals.
Salamander is good to make frigates run away, because if they don't they die.
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Medium
Balistics
Assalt Chaingun is one of the most powerfull weapons a player can have, specially on a SO ship.
Hiper Velocity Driver(fancy name for a railgun, lol) is probably one of th most borring strong weapons, because of how it works you are probably not having fun sniping at 1200 SU or dead on 400 SU.
Heavy needler and Heavy autocannon are where the fun is in medium kinetics.
don't really like the Heavy Mortar and the Heavy Mauler, they don't fell like as powerfull as the kinetics, but some rare ocasions I fell like I need them, but in the next fight there am I asolutaly crusing
oposition.
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Energy
Mining blaster can be fun, but for that you have the upgraded version caled Heavy Blaster.
Pulse laser is probably the one weapon I end up using the most of the energy, mostly because it is the only medium energy that is selling on that market...
Phase lance is the one thing protecting my Paragon from being flanked from a frigate wanting to send reapers on it's engine.
Graviton and Ion Beans are that, Beans, which i don't use as much.
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Missiles
Sabot pods, Classic Falcon(P) weapon, and very well deserved.
Harpoon pods, can we say those are very dangerous.
Salamander pods, because 1 per ship is not enought lets send 6 in one frigate, in one launcher voley.
Typhoon Reaper launcher, 5 reapers that can be extended to 10 on a single launcher? yes!
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Large
Balistics
Mjolnir Cannon, balistics energy and powerfull, only reason i don't use it more ofthen is because I forgot aboust it;
Gauss cannon(another railgun with anoter name), long range kinetics, the only reason this weapon is not completaly overpower is becuse there's not a single ship that can use it effectively, that is, that any faction can have.
Overall not impresed by large balistics, it just fells underwellming in comparason to medium balistics, if Mjolnir canon wasan't here I whould probably not even say a thing about Gauss at all.
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Energy
Plasma cannon, probably the most important energy weapon, that you mount on a energy mount, in the game, it just fells good, range: good, Damage: good, Flux: good.
Autopulse Laser, perfect for the early game, where geting every pound of power on a weapon is more important.
High Intencity Laser can strip armor in seconds, even from heavily armored shipsonly reason i don't see this weapon more is because shields are a thing.
Tachyon Lance, almost as if the only weaponthat needed to be able to generate hard flux to be broken does not generate hard flux, beamcause reasons.
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Missiles
Locust, powerfull swam of small missiles, let me just use it on half of my ships.
Huricane Reaper Launcher, probably the only option for big missile weapons, because everyting else is just so underwelming
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FooF

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Re: What is everybody's favorite weapon
« Reply #23 on: February 21, 2020, 08:12:30 PM »

Favorite weapon is hard to pin down.

In general:

Small Energy <<<< Small Ballistic
Medium Energy < Medium Ballistic
Large Ballistic <<< Large Energy

Railguns and Light Needlers are extremely powerful for small mounts and even Dual AC and LAG are respectable. Small Energy is my least favorite grouping of weapons. Only one generalist and a bunch of Beams of middling value. AM Blaster is of note but it's hard to work in.

Medium mounts can be a toss-up. Ballistics have a lot of good options (Mauler, Heavy Needler, Heavy Mortar, Heavy AC, HVD..almost all of them are good/great) while Energy has fewer but they're all pretty decent. Phase Lance is up there as one of my all-time favorites and the Heavy Blaster is probably #1 if you have a ship that can use it reliably. Ion Pulser is the only dud of the group because of its short range.

Large Ballistics are so-so but Large Energy are monsters. Even the relatively tame Autopulse is a very powerful generalist option. Tachyon Lance with ITU just crushes stuff from long range, the HIL is good in most situations, and the Plasma Cannon is a doomsday weapon if you can afford it (a better Heavy Blaster!) I wish the Aurora had a Large Energy mount just so I could have heavy gunship cruiser. Large Ballistic doesn't have the same "wow!" factor. Mjolnir is good but way too expensive and I tend to stick with the Mk. IX and Hellbore combo because they're cheap and still pack a punch.

Top 5 for General Use:
#1 - Phase Lance. Just an overall good weapon. Good armor penetration, pressures shields, and kills fighters well, too.
#2 - Heavy Mortar. Cheap, good DPS, good armor penetration and the slow shot speed doesn't really offset the positives.
#3 - Heavy Blaster. On a ship that can afford it, it's a Large Energy weapon that is good against everything.
#4 - Tachyon Lance. Does everything well, and at range. Just expensive to mount.
#5 - Railgun. Best ballistic pound-for-pound. Phenomenal against shields, keeps pressure up, good range.
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StarScum

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Re: What is everybody's favorite weapon
« Reply #24 on: February 21, 2020, 10:56:58 PM »

Dagger Torpedo Bombers, by far.
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Lucky33

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Re: What is everybody's favorite weapon
« Reply #25 on: February 22, 2020, 12:53:45 AM »

Empty Small Energy Mount >>> Thumper.

Sabots, Reapers > everything else.
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Eji1700

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Re: What is everybody's favorite weapon
« Reply #26 on: February 22, 2020, 01:45:57 AM »

I know this will be like asking everybody what is their favorite flavor of ice cream, but being a new player I'm trying to get a grasp on which weapons work and which don't. 
The question being answered, as others have pointed out, doesn't really help with your issue. I've always felt that one of the best examples of ship that shows a beginner how the game works is the default hammerhead.

Thats-

2x Railguns
2x Harpoons
2x Motars/Assault Chain Guns
+ whatever.

You ideally drift in, letting your railguns soften up their shields, and then when they're near max turn on the feeders and start blasting away with your motars, maybe supported by harpoons.  Just messing around with this basic loadout really helped give me a feel for the roles you need to fill on a ship (or group of ships), and thus where the various weapons fit into it all.

So that said, most of my favorite weaopns are ones that are just "fun" to me.  Ideally because they encourage a unique playstyle (something of a lack of that in vanilla) or just feel good to rip a ship apart with.

Some noteables-

Light Machine Guns - while an awful way to use them, i love loading a ton of these on something like a mora and just hovering next to a destroyer/frigate chewing them to death slowly

AntiMatter/Mining blasters - Sneaking a shot past shields is such a good feeling, especially when you get better at piloting and it's not just abusing a phase ship (ditto for the torps/rockets)

Devastator - really really really big LMGs.  I'll admit i was sad when i made a dominator with two of these, stripped my opponent of their armor, fired, and didn't instantly erase them, but it's still fun (and just as unwise as my less than stellar LMG useage)

Ion pulsars - like the rest of these just satisfying to land.  It's in an odd spot because its what i mentally categorize as a "combo" weapon, in that it lets your other ships/weapons rip into them, but it also needs some setup to really work right.

and the absolute best of the best:

The Piranha Bomber.

I adore setting up some capital ship to be disabled just long enough to let a swarm(3 wings minimum) of these descend into their slow, obvious, graceful bombing run and watching as bombs float serenely towards their fully stacked shields and armor before evaporating them.  They're great station poppers in the early game, and so so fun in the late game.  The khopesh fills a similar role in a "i'd like to win without having to try so damn hard" manner, but god are piranha's fun, and I really hope we see more unique weapons some day (as even mods still have variations on the theme of most of the vanilla ones, i'm surprised there aren't more weapons that care about the ships momentum)

Speaking of mods though at least one weapon that's stuck with me is the shadowyards heavy energy double laser.  The name escapes me but watching the two beams rake across a hull as they cross each other is just so so satisfying.
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Grievous69

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Re: What is everybody's favorite weapon
« Reply #27 on: February 22, 2020, 02:54:00 AM »

It's really sad not a single person mentioned Squalls. Such an underwhelming large missile weapon when Sabots are a better choice in every situation. Plus the fact that you can only fire them 5 times in battle. They're not bursty at all, I don't get why they don't have more ammo or just reload after a while. The only time I've ever used those was in a tournament on a Remnant ship with a missile autoforge, so it doesn't even count.
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Igncom1

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Re: What is everybody's favorite weapon
« Reply #28 on: February 22, 2020, 03:02:33 AM »

To be fair there are few weapons that I don't like.
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Megas

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Re: What is everybody's favorite weapon
« Reply #29 on: February 22, 2020, 07:17:30 AM »

Squalls stink.  Bad tracking, not much ammo.  The best use I read about them was on Astral used to keep enemies at bay and stall for time.  (That costs too much OP better spent on fighters.)  However, it is still better than most dumb-fire large missiles because most ships that have large missile mounts are not designed for them.  The only ship that can use them well and not die trying or badly comprising their primary role is the Legion (XIV), which cannot be built or bought.  Gryphon is too fragile, Astral is built for bomber spam, Conquest is built for ballistic broadsides, and the rest have unfriendly mounts.  If Aurora got its large missile mount back, or we get more good ships with large missile mounts, then Hammage Barrage and Cyclone Reaper would be more useful.

MIRVs are mediocre without ECCM and/or Missile Spec. skill.  Too expensive and fail to converge properly out-of-the-box.  (With boosts, they converge and can be decent).  The only good thing about them is the range, which is useful for ships built for Gauss cannon use.
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