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[Warlord-616x]

hey fellas so just seen a lot of folks loving on the maulers and hating on the heavy mortars, but while the heavy mortars have less range they also seem to do more damage on paper and are 5 points cheaper.  im not concerned with range on this ship and need more raw dps. 

do people just like the maulers for sniping or am i missing something?

[Warlord-616x]

heck at this point im tempted to swap them out for chainguns and try and extend the range as far out as i can...

[Dri]

I honestly haven't played in a long time (so the meta could have changed) but RANGE IS KING is why Maulers win. If you can attack them, but the enemy can't attack you...

[Harmful Mechanic]

Range is king, and also alpha damage: larger shots penetrate more armor, so where two mortar shells bounce off, a mauler round can penetrate. Especially since the mortar spreads around a good bit.

[Warlord-616x]

but the ai is dumb.  you just dont fire at it (or dump on it at least, or fire at another target on approach) and you can get about as close as you want.  also burn drive and picking targets focused on others has allowed me to relegate distances pretty easy.

went from hypervelocity drivers and maulers for awhile to heavy needlers and heavy mortars instead seemed to be working out, but ya been taking on mostly pirate waves of atlas or lil nobodies so could see the pen being a problem later i suppose...

EDIT: and is there a way or place to see penetration values?  or other things like magazine sizes?

[Warlord-616x]

ya running simulations the mortar just seems like it still does better even armored targets. guess i could be trying heavier and was only testing against a venture and aurora, but for some reason just seems like im getting more overloads with the extra rate of fire from the mortars.  with the maulers i still get a few but notice the target also has enough time to back away from me a lot easier then he would otherwise would be when the mortars open up.  mortars kill the target in the first encounter.  the maulers i only got him partially damaged before he could back off and it allowed him to come back at me half a dozen times.

tried against dominators and falcons as well.  guess i need to try against the battleships? and is there a way that i can bring in allied units and an opposing unit? whenever i try and bring in a friendly to help me against the extra weight class it just brings in either the friendly or the opfor.

did another vs a conquest and onslaught and maybe its me and my tactics changing slightly, but the mortars seemed to be better vs the conquest and slightly worse vs the onslaught. but then again onslaught has almost twice the armor. 

fought the paragon and lost with the maulers, but eventually beat it with the mortars and had 70% health left.  i was relying on missiles as well tho in both cases.

[Arcagnello]

Heavy Mortars are a strange beast, just like the Light Mortars.

They are NOT a bad weapon, in fact they are quite amazing on the right setup, they even make ships that would otherwise have to downgrade their medium ballistic mounts and use small ballistic (like the Enforcer) retain a very respectable damage potential instead.

But it does not end there. The heavy mortar does especially well when you install it on an Overridden ship with a lot of medium ballistic slots and you don't want to also spam vents to sustain the absurd flux generation of things like Assault Chainguns (wich are getting a nerf next patch by the way, should make Heavy Mortars even more worth it).

As an example of a ship that can make Heavy Mortar spam very much worth it,  I am currently using heavy mortars on an overridden, 20 FP mod ship (from Hazard Mining Incorporated) called Roach King wich has an incredible amount of ballistic slots facing the front (7 medium slots of wich 1 is energy and 2 are hardpoints, 1 large ballistic on a turret and a plethora of small ballistics, there also are a lot of missile slots but I'm not actually using those) but barely any flux dissipation to install expensive stuff.

The one problem of heavy mortars isn't really their inaccuracy or comparably worse projectile speed/weapon range, it's the fact that not many ships have enough spare medium ballistic slots to properly deploy it. The real problem therefore is the fact that it's way too cheap for a medium slot. I could see it being much more widely used if it cost a bit more (thinking about 8-9 OP) with improved fire rate while retaining its amazing flux to damage ratio.

P.S: I've also got mods that introduce (rather expensive) hull-mods that significantly buff projectile speed and accuracy when combined, potentially making Heavy Mortars (and Arbalest Aurocannons by extention) quite potent at range. You might consider cheking them out for your future campaign

1) More Hullmods by PureTilt: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=18474.0 (Includes Particle Accellerator that increases projectile speed by 35%)

2) Ships/Weapon pack by Dark.Revenant : https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=11018.0 (Includes Gunnery control AI that improves weapon tracking and also increases projectile speed by 35%)

[Scorpixel]

Heavy mortars are extremely good, don't see why they would get ditched. Both dps and flux-efficiency are top-tier, on top of only being 7op, 700 range pair perfectly with railguns. Accuracy is good-enough for it's role.
Maulers are artillery just like Hypervelocity drivers, the two of them are excellent against cruiser-capital threats and easily snipe/outrange smaller ships.

Those two are my n°1 ex-equo regarding (M)ballistic explosives, both having high enough per-shot damage, mortars with undeniably superior dps and cost-efficiency being only beaten by sheer range and armour cracking.
My best case would be the mod-ships Phoca and (IBB)Phoca:

-Phoca broadside is divine, 4(M)ballistic with ammo-feeder, Mauler-Driver-Driver-Mauler and you get a perfect artillery light-cruiser, along enough laser-pd to resist missiles and fighters even when isolated.

-Red Phoca from IBB quest replace the 7 (S)energy with ballistics, and the ammo-feeder with a speed boost. Full mortar/railgun gives the equivalent of a permanently ammo-feeded Hammerhead with superior range and mobility, overwhelms most ships without getting retaliation.

As for the light mortar, 10/10 best budget gun ever created, 2op for a flux-efficient 75/shot 600 range explosive? Into the trash go anything else of that category.

[Grievous69]

Honestly I just pick whatever fits the build better concerning the ranges. It doesn't make much sense to put a 700 range inaccurate weapon on a slow ship with mostly 1000 range weapons. But directly comparing them, sure Heavy Mortar comes on top, just becuse it's so cheap and it performs decently. Still, I wish there was something between these 2 weapons, costing 10 OP but having 800 range.

[Retry]

The one problem of heavy mortars isn't really their inaccuracy or comparably worse projectile speed/weapon range, it's the fact that not many ships have enough spare medium ballistic slots to properly deploy it. The real problem therefore is the fact that it's way too cheap for a medium slot. I could see it being much more widely used if it cost a bit more (thinking about 8-9 OP) with improved fire rate while retaining its amazing flux to damage ratio.

What, no

I use heavy mortars when I need cheap and relatively flux-light armor cracking when my OP budget is tight, and they fill that niche well.  Turning it into a more premium weapon while ramping up the OP requirements completely misses the point.

[Thaago]

My rules of thumb for maulers vs mortars vs assault chaingun:

Is most of the ship's firepower looking to be at around the 700-800* range band, and its ok for the HE damage to be inaccurate (bonus if they can be installed in hardpoints as this lowers recoil)? Then use mortars as they are cheap and flux efficient.

Most of the firepower at 900-1000* range? Use Maulers. They are pricy and lower dps, but they have high shot penetration and range.

Need lots of firepower, but don't care about range or penetration that much? Assault Chaingun.

*Before range boosters/penalties.

[Megas]

Honestly I just pick whatever fits the build better concerning the ranges. It doesn't make much sense to put a 700 range inaccurate weapon on a slow ship with mostly 1000 range weapons. But directly comparing them, sure Heavy Mortar comes on top, just becuse it's so cheap and it performs decently. Still, I wish there was something between these 2 weapons, costing 10 OP but having 800 range.

THIS!

Heavy Mauler used to fire faster, but now that it shoots slowly, it is no good except on sniper loadouts (or rarely, ships with HE mount set so far back).  For general brawling, its DPS is lacking, and shoots slowly enough that it is hurts against swift targets and/or mobs, especially since Mauler does not have perfect accuracy like HVD or Gauss.  Even 1000 range is too much range if it means AI will hang far back enough that 800 or less range kinetics are out-of-range.

Currently, I use Heavy Mortar as my go-to medium HE because there is nothing better, and that hurts.  Occasionally, I use Mauler on Eagle (middle mount is set back a bit), or any (midline) ship with HVD/Gauss.  I wish there was a better medium HE on par with Heavy Needler or even Heavy Autocannon, one with 800 range to compliment 800 range kinetics.

Original Mauler (with 250 DPS) was overpowered.  First nerf Mauler (with 200 DPS) was a little strong, but felt like an elite weapon (and this was before Heavy Mortar was added).  Now, second nerf Mauler feels like a sidegrade to the only other HE medium weapon, and a low-end one at that.  (Chaingun does not count; it is a budget sawed-off HAG for Safety Override loadouts.)

As for the light mortar, 10/10 best budget gun ever created, 2op for a flux-efficient 75/shot 600 range explosive? Into the trash go anything else of that category.

It is good now after its range was boosted to 600.  Before those days, the range was significantly less (between 400 to 500).

Light Mortar is nice for ships with more light mounts than the player knows what to do with.

[Igncom1]

I use mortars as the standard medium HE weapon. Cheap and cheerful.

Maulers pair well with HVD's as artillery.

Assault Chainguns pair well with Heavy Machine Guns for immense amounts of fire-power at short ranges. (On capitals their short range ain't so short, so beware!)

[Daynen]

Maulers have that critical 1000 range that beats out most medium weapons and basically all small weapons, allowing safe engagement against a wide variety of targets.  They also have a great per shot HE damage, making them fantastic at cracking open heavy armor.  The fact that the hypervelocity driver is practically a sister weapon to the mauler that breaks shields makes the pairing natural and intuitive when available.  The mauler just has a lot going for it and it easily leads into a lot of strategies.

Mortars aren't to be discounted though; their low cost and small size make them practical and cost efficient, leaving room for bigger kinetic weapons to take up the slack against hi-tech fleets.  The shorter range is to be considered but if you're building a ship that doesn't care, then you can absolutely wreck shop with some well placed mortars.  I happen to be a mauler fan myself (have you SEEN the mod with the retriever mk II battlecarrier?  YOU CAN FIT SO MANY MAULERS IN THAT BAD BOY) but there's plenty of room in Starsector for playstyles that work for you and fleets that don't concentrate all their ordinance points into the biggest weapons possible.

[Arcagnello]

Here's a pic for you mortar enthustiasts out there 

Spoiler

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If you're interested about the mods:

Spoiler

The ship is from Hazard Mining Incorporated (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=13236.0), the 4 Spike Drivers are from Roider union (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=9547.0), Some extra hullmods are from More HullMods (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=18474.0) and another hullmod is from the Ship/Weapon Pack(https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=11018.0)

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