Fractal Softworks Forum
Starsector => General Discussion => Topic started by: Kanjejou on May 25, 2022, 04:20:55 PM
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It seem that on those ship very often the best builds are the one where you leave the small weapons slot empty...ands only use large and mediums weapons slot so that the flux consumption and OP usuage of the ship stay good.
Astral · Atlas Mk.II · Conquest · Legion · Odyssey · Onslaught · Paragon · Prometheus Mk.II and also Dominator are pretty much all the better without those small guns on them...
which is a bit sad because it mean the best thing to do it to never use them, and never to really DAKKA
Maybe its just me but except for missiles maybe, small slot are more of a destroyer shuttle and frigate kind of guns...
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Is this true? Do you not put PD on your small slots?
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Look into the Ballistic Rangefinder hullmod. It lets you push small ballistics out to match the range of large mounts, and your kinetic output isn't particularly bothered by the low hit strength from small weapons. You are correct that sometimes it's better to leave extra mounts undersized or even empty (ie, a hightech ship with 360 degree shields may want more flux stats more than it wants a full spread of rear PD lasers), but small ballistics are pretty great.
EDIT: and even if they aren't part of your primary battery, a couple of Light Autocannons mixed into your side mounts benefiting from big ship ITU boosts can make it much harder for small ships to harass your flanks effectively.
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Out of all those ships the only ones I leave with empty small mounts are MK.II ships because they bleed for OP. Don't use Astral so can't comment there.
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I almost always leave small energies empty because the energy PD is worthless, but small ballistics are exceptionally good.
Small kinetics (LAC) + medium PD (single flak) seems like the best choice on the likes of Onslaught to me.
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I almost always fill small ballistics, with the occasional exception of the side mounts on Dominators if I'm short on OP, as those arcs are moderately covered by other weapons/the shields. But the Vulcan is such good PD that its sometimes even worth putting in medium slots if the user just wants basic PD and doesn't want to pay 8 OP for flak, and lmg's will deal very high shield damage to any cheeky frigate that gets close while costing basically 0 flux, and will also give a little bit of supplemental anti missile.
For small energy: burst PD are effective (reliably shooting down sabots etc), but also expensive, so I kind of treat them like I would a medium PD mount in terms of build priority: if I want a ship to have good PD I'll put a bunch on. LRPD are good for fleet support because of their long range and good tracking/extension, so I'll put them on if I know my ships are going to be flying near each other. PD lasers are better than LRPD for self defense on the cheap and usually have enough range to engage fighters, but are just really bad compared to vulcans. I will often leave small energies open, but sometimes that comes from having a smaller number of burst PDs so I'm not really saving OP, just using a premium weapon in fewer mounts.
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For ballistic mounts, it varies by ship.
For Dominator, I use Vulcans (and IPDAI) because I usually want to use assault weapons instead of flak in the medium mounts. I may put two railguns in the rear to defend against smaller ships and missiles. I find IPDAI necessary for small weapons to track well enough. (I tried no IDPAI, and Vulcans alone were unreliable.)
Eradicator probably gets Railguns and Ballistic Rangefinder.
For Onslaught, I leave them empty. I tried Ballistic Rangefinder and Railguns on Onslaught, but they tend to get knocked out frequently under enemy fire. Heavy weapons are more resilient against knockout from enemy fire.
For Legion, sometimes, I mount Mortars, Vulcan, or Railguns, or leave them empty, depending on other weapons.
Atlas II is empty. It needs all the OP it can get for two Gauss cannons, two MIRVs, and the hullmods to support those weapons.
For small energy mounts (Conquest, Odyssey, Astral, Paragon), I try to fill them with burst PD or IPDAI IR Pulse Lasers (or Omega weapons if I have them), depending on what I need. The continuous beam PD is not strong enough. Note that IR Pulse Laser is efficient, and good for anti-fighter, especially with elite PD. Sometimes, I leave few of the mounts empty. I prefer to shoot down incoming missiles (and fighters and mines) before they put hard flux on the shield.
Notable ships:
Fury. If I have elite PD, I put an IR Pulse Laser or Ion Cannon to compliment the Heavy Blaster. Maybe a burst PD too. I use two burst PDs for the rear. The rest are empty. It seems many mounts are for continuous beam PD, not for the effective, more expensive weapons.
Champion. I tend to leave small mounts on the front empty. I think I put two in the rear
Conquest. I want some PD on it, and I mount at least eight burst PD. Occasionally (if I give it to an Aggressive+ officer), I may skip the PD and put Converted Hangar -> Xyphos on it instead.
Paragon. I put some burst PD for anti-missile.
Astral. If I have elite PD + IPDAI, I cram as many IR Pulse Lasers on it as I can get away with and let it rip against smaller ships that get too close.
Ziggurat. I like IR Pulse Laser plus IPDAI for additional PD when its motes are not available or not enough. (Motes alone is not enough against huge fighter swarms or Doom stacks and their mine spam.) If I want more burst damage instead, I may mount Antimatter Blasters instead. Of course, if I have Omega weapons (Rift weapons, AMSRMs), they get used instead.
P.S. More ships.
Doom. Light Needlers or AMBs.
Mora. Railguns and LAG in front mounts, Vulcan in side and rear mount. It has enough OP to act like a battlecarrier.
Heron. Burst PD (four of them), if I have elite PD skill. Here, they double as anti-armor to compliment its main gun. That said, I only use this if I have s-mods on Heron. Heron has too few OP to work as a battlecarrier without s-mods. (Heron needs that +10 OP boost that Mora got.)
Brilliant. Burst PD.
Radiant. None at the front, four IR Pulse Lasers in the rear against occasional attackers. Radiant is all about the bigger guns.
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Sometimes I'll skip small slot weapons if I have a medium that does the same job, otherwise machine guns will do just fine for their OP cost in general purpose close defence.
Honestly sometimes people value hull mods a little too much and many can just be outright dropped.
Dominators can still put out tremendous work covered in MGs. Vulcan's are overrated in my opinion.
For small energy slots you can even fit an antimatter blaster as an 'extra' torpedo which can do some serious work when boosted by cruiser or capital range mods.
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I almost always leave small energies empty because the energy PD is worthless, but small ballistics are exceptionally good.
Small kinetics (LAC) + medium PD (single flak) seems like the best choice on the likes of Onslaught to me.
What about the tactical laser?
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What about the tactical laser?
Bad flux efficiency against everything and no hard flux. The weapon is only really useful for tricking the AI into keeping shields up while you shoot kinetics, which is something only a few midline ships exploit.
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Tac laser + IPDAI can be somewhat useful just for the sheer range of missile suppression, but is flux-intensive and can't shoot over stuff like the LR PD laser.
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Is this true? Do you not put PD on your small slots?
I usually have fighters in most of my carriers so the PD is done by them
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Clearly this person never had a pd focused Paragon!
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Tactical lasers extend a bit too slowly and they are prone to not fully firing because they are constantly trying to update their targets. That is the biggest problem with tactical lasers. Also, 1.0 efficiency is inefficient for PD weapons.
Bad flux efficiency against everything and no hard flux. The weapon is only really useful for tricking the AI into keeping shields up while you shoot kinetics, which is something only a few midline ships exploit.
IPDAI Tactical Laser with HSA and elite PD on the officer also has the most range of any non-large hard flux energy weapon (more than ePD+IPDAI IR Pulse Laser). It is not very good, but it is better than useless, and usable on ships that want maximum hard flux range. I have used it on few ships, usually Fulgents (because AI cores have all elite skills that can be reassigned freely).
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Clearly this person never had a pd focused Paragon!
Clearly he/she never had any PD power in the fleet and tank missiles and wings with face
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I usualy leave just one or two smol weapon mounts empty.
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Dominators can still put out tremendous work covered in MGs. Vulcan's are overrated in my opinion.
I tried single MGs (with IPDAI) on Dominator, but they were not reliable enough anti-missile. The Single MGs have a pause between bursts (and DMGs cost more than Vulcans). Vulcan is more reliable anti-missile defense. MGs are okay if I want a very efficient general-purpose weapon against over-aggressive enemy frigates that stray into MG range and perhaps to pick off an incoming head-on missile.
If I need reliable anti-missile in a small ballistic mount, Vulcan is the only option. Of course, if the ship has several small mounts, not all of them need be filled with Vulcans.
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I throw in light autocannons for small ballistic then double up with Integrated Point Defence AI and the Point Defence elite skill. For a moderate flux cost you build an impressive point defence screen that has a decent range advantage to match your large slots.
A lot of it depends on your build of course and there are many times you'll want to keep them under gunned or empty to save flux for your heavy hitting weapons.
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Used to be the case, now can be more justifiable.
the new rangefinder hullmod can bring S/M sized ballistics to large ball baseline, as alternative to mk9 and storm needler. It is still gonna cost you a hullmod of op just to benefit these smaller mounts.
And most ship should prioritize flux and hullmods than filling out entiregun mounts, many of them scattered and poorly converges, is it worth it to add hullmod just for the few turret slots converges with large ball mounts?. IPDAI also cancels non-pd range benefit from range finder, for IPDAI change small mount to pd.
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It all depends on the weapon type.
For ballistic anti-armor weapons the most important stat is damage per shot, which tends to be higher for larger weapons. So you always want the largest possible HE guns.
For ballistic anti-shield the opposite is true. With ballistic rangefinder, Railguns and other small kinetics are better than Mark IXs or HACs. The exception is long-range guns. Any ship that can fit Gauss Cannons generally wants to do that over picking HVDs. The extra 200 range and armor penetration are worth the extra flux consumption.
For ballistic PD, Vulcans are simply the best and Dual Flak can be a useful supplement, but Devastators are terrible against anything besides massed bombers.
For energy weapons, larger = better across the board. On paper this includes PD, but in practice most ships with energy weapon slots need their large and medium slots for their main guns and cannot afford to use them for PD. And a lot of high tech ships either don't need PD or cannot afford the OP cost of more than 2-3 small PD guns.
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Imo PD weapons are kind of overpriced by a few points. With no real punching power against larger ships and some PD options cost more than a few regular weapons designed for attacking ships even. If they cost less, it would be nice to mount more of them. PD otherwise functions perfectly fine. Ive found the dual LMG & Vulcan to be good enough to tackle most threats in the form of Interceptors, Torps or Missiles. the LMG is underwhelming, as well as the laser options unless focusing their fire.
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For ballistic anti-shield the opposite is true. With ballistic rangefinder, Railguns and other small kinetics are better than Mark IXs or HACs.
Not always. For some ships, mount placement and weapon durability is a factor. Railguns on the front mounts on Dominator or Onslaught look great on paper until the enemy lands a few hits on them and they get knocked out, while a genuine heavy weapon like Mark IX is better protected and much harder to knockout, and it keeps firing.
Sometimes, range-boosted railguns are better than HAC, sometimes not, depending on OP budget or DPS needs. (I generally use HACs over Railguns on Eagle, while I probably use Railguns instead on Eradicator.)
Also, Ballistic Rangefinder does not work on small weapons if the ship has IPDAI on it (they all become PD weapons) or if the ballistics are in hybrid/composite/universal mounts.
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I think ballistic rangefinder is in a really good spot balance wise: its good on some builds, not good on others. Even on the same ship it can be good or not useful depending on how the rest of the slots are used.