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[Igncom1]

What is your preferred or in your opinion for the best ballistic weapon in the game?

In my opinion, based on cost and effect as well as ability to obtain I believe that the railgun, the small size ballistic cannon to be the best ballistic weapon in the game.

It's effective dps, flux cost and OP cost honestly in my eyes makes it superior to even the medium sized ballistic weapons. A cruiser with railguns simply won't build up flux and will have extra OP to spend on mods and flux upgrades. Eagles in particular with three railguns up front can easily overwhelm enemy cruiser with no risk to it's self.

You can't slot them into large weapon slots, but honestly that isn't too bad of an issue as putting them into available medium slots should free up enough OP for whatever you want to combo it with.

What is your best ballistic weapon?

[DeMatt]

..."Best" depends to a large part on the tactical situation in which you're trying to employ the weapon.  Consider:

• "Railgun!  Shoot down that Swarmer barrage!" - miss - miss - miss - THUDTHUDTHUDTHUD - "YOU MISSED!  YOU'RE WORTHLESS!"
• "Railgun!  Punch through that Onslaught Dominator Enforcer's armor!" - dink - dink - dink - "WHAT'S TAKING SO LONG?  YOU'RE WORTHLESS!"

Try "favourite" instead.

[TJJ]

There really aren't any good-at-everything ballistic weapons, which is a sign of great balance!

Vulcan cannon, Heavy Mauler, Heavy/Dual Light Machine Gun, Light Needler, Flak, Gauss, HVD, they all have their niche in which they out-perform all others.

Then there's all the tier-2 weapons that are balanced around their widespread availability in the campaign, so are designed to be under-powered.

The only disappointing ballistics IMO are most of the Large mounts (they do too little for their OP cost), and the Heavy Needler (just take Light Needler).

I suppose that makes the Light Needler my favourite weapon, as it's excellent at what it does, obsoletes many larger weapons, and is painfully hard to obtain in sufficient quantities.

[Megas]

They all have their uses, depending on what is available or the ship.

For example, Mjolnir is probably the best all-around ballistic for assault, but the character needs to min-max dissipation and flux skills to use them effectively.  Unskilled characters have trouble using heavy ballistics that are not Hellbore, Mark IX, or Devastator due to flux costs.

However, for PD, Vulcan rules small mounts and (dual) Flak rule Medium.

For small kinetics, it is either railgun or light needler depending on whether I need accuracy, shot range, efficiency, or if OP cost is a factor.

Re: Heavy Needler is decent if the character needs to squeeze more flux efficiency than max vents can provide (and better turn speed and accuracy than Heavy Autocannon).  I find Heavy Needlers useful on Legion, when Light Needlers are not an option.

Light Needlers are great, but they are very rare.  It is hard to find enough for all of my ships.  Heavy Needlers are relatively common, especially as loot.

[Dri]

Does anyone even use the Hephaestus Assault Gun? The Light Autocannon (and to a lesser degree the Dual version) is pretty underwhelming as well...

I really like Heavy Maulers and Hypervelocity Drivers. Light Needlers are also amazing.

[PixiCode]

the better question for me myself is which ballistics I dislike. I kind of hate the thumper, Hephaestus and arbalest. I've found a good or fun use for every other mount. Not even to say those weapons are bad.

I'll say I have a personal fondness for all 3 sizes of autocannon, though. I think it's because I relied on them on my first playthrough back when Corvus was the only system. When I want HE I like the heavy mauler and PD I like vulkans or machine guns, depending on where the mount is for PD. And of course flak is great.

Even the devastator has some funny uses.

[Linnis]

If the thumper did not suffer from reduced turn rate from firing then it could be pretty good. But it's still ugly.

[Megas]

Does anyone even use the Hephaestus Assault Gun? The Light Autocannon (and to a lesser degree the Dual version) is pretty underwhelming as well...

I really like Heavy Maulers and Hypervelocity Drivers. Light Needlers are also amazing.

I would use Hephaestus Assault Gun more if it was more common.  Currently, it is almost as rare as Mjolnir or Storm Needler.  I think Gauss Cannon is a bit more common than HAG because pirates use that.  Because of HAGs rarity, Hellbore is the only readily available HE option for heavies.  Hellbore is basically a much more common version of the Heavy Mauler that requires a heavy mount.  Hellbore chews through armor despite low DPS, and it is my weapon of choice on a Legion, which has mediocre flux stats.  As for HAG, if I use it then lose it in combat, I would reload the game immediately.  I would not do that if I had Hellbore or Mark IX on the ship.

Light Autocannon is useful because it is readily available from Open Market and it is relatively cheap on OP.  Dual Light Autocannon is better, but it is surprisingly rare.  Not quite as rare as Railgun or Light Needler, but rare enough that they are not disposable.  The Light Autocannon series are good for those that are limited to 600 range HE weapons because the extra range from Railgun or Light Needler gets wasted.  The Light Autocannons also have no windup, which is an advantage over Railgun.

Heavy Maulers, HVDs, and Light Needlers are great, but rare.  At least Remnants (with Brilliants) are a reliable source for HVD drops, but that requires an endgame fleet to farm and not die.

[TaLaR]

Does anyone even use the Hephaestus Assault Gun?

HAG tries to combine the opposites (low damage per shot + HE damage type) and ends up mediocre as result. Why bother when Hellbore is cheaper, more common and better at actually breaking armor?

[Megas]

The second biggest obstacle to HAG, after rarity, is flux cost.  Since the weakening of skills, it is hard for unskilled ships to fire heavy weapons for long.  Flux cost of HAG may or may not be high enough to prevent continuous fire.  Mark IX is probably the most an unskilled ship can handle.

Hellbore is terrible for shooting down fast and numerous targets.  Some ships do not need to worry about that weakness because they have other things that cover it.  For example, Legion has fighters to take out the chaff.  Since Hellbore lost half of its DPS, HAG is decent when raw DPS and ease-of-use are more useful than armor penetration, and the ship cannot use Mjolnir for whatever reason.

If there is one ballistic that seems superfluous, it is Storm Needler.  Despite being much-improved in 0.8.x, it still inferior to Mjolnir.  Storm Needler has less range, costs more OP.  It is probably less effective against hull now than before with minimum armor.

[xenoargh]

I'm afraid I'm not near my charts ATM but this will have to do.  They more or less show what's up.

The problem with "all Ballistics" is that includes everything; there are better / worse in every category.

If we are talking about Kinetics, the Light Needler is the best choice.  It's way above par on efficiency, range and DPS.  But, unless you know who to farm them from and have some patience, their rarity can be annoying.  Next after that is the Railgun.  They're both supremely more efficient at flux-locking opponents so that other weapons can efficiently take down Armor.  The only Vanilla weapons that are better are the LMGs, but they lack enough range and in a heavy fight in late game, they rarely are worth spending Flux on.

The Arbalest is trash and the Light ACs aren't much better; the Heavy AC's all right if nothing better's available, but not great (Railgun is superior).  It's arguable that the HVD is good simply because of range, but if the enemy can close the distance or you want to finish things before CR begins to bite, you want Railguns and Light Needlers. HVD only looks good to armchair commanders, IMO; it keeps your ships at arms-length, but it can't finish things.  Better to invest OPs in the ability to close the distance.

Unfortunately, that's it.  Gauss is worthless; too inefficient for what little it does, Storm Needler simply doesn't have the efficiency to be more than a burst-alpha, player-only gun with only a marginal use case (I made an Onslaught once that did all right with one).

In HE, the Heavy Mauler is far better than anything else.  Good firepower, supreme range, reasonable efficiency.  The only other HE worth mentioning is the LAG, which is all right but nothing special, and the Hellbore, which is largely inferior to the Heavy Mauler but has high-enough single-shot alpha to be considered.

In Frag, the Flak is superior to the Dual Flak, for OP efficiency.  It also outrages the Dual Flak by 100 units, which really adds up if we're talking late-game ITU and character buffs and ECM.  I don't think the Vulcan's worth 4 OPs; in late-game play, 4 OPs spent on Venting is better and missiles should be dodged, shield-tanked or Flak'd, in that order.  

Thumper remains a gun in search of a job; if Armor-less fighters were a thing, it might have a point, since it's the third-best Flux-per-Hull gun in the game.  But Hull matters so little I general that it's hardly worth considering.

Megas is entirely right; for no particular reason, one of the most efficient Energy weapons in the game is in Ballistics.  Unfortunately, it's almost entirely a player-gun, because, like the Storm Needler, it tends to be a terrible choice for AI ships.

[Megas]

Gauss is decent for a Conquest (flagship) that wants or needs to duel a Paragon.  Sure, Gauss inefficiency is atrocious, but it is the only way a capital can have range comparable against enemy Paragon.  Without Gauss, Paragon outranges the Conquest too much, and Conquest will probably lose.  Also, with a mod that enables playable Remnants, Gauss is great on the Brilliant because its large universal sets so far back from the medium hardpoints.  Heavy Maulers in the hardpoints with Gauss Cannon in the back is a very effective combination for kite-and-snipe.

With Flak, I do not care much about range, except when using them as an assault weapon/finisher against cowardly unarmored ships.  I care about them stopping missiles dead.  Single Flak is okay, but against a missile storm, single Flak only takes out the first few missiles while the follow-ups get through between flak shots.  Dual Flak fires so much that anything short of Squalls and the like do not get through and are stuffed.  Even against Squalls, if the ship has four or so dual flak that can overlap, even Squalls can get stopped.

I like HVD because it matches range with Heavy Mauler.  If I use Heavy Mauler, it is generally to kite-and-snipe.  Sniping with Heavy Mauler alone will not do without a complimentary kinetic.  For that, HVD is the perfect partner for Heavy Mauler.  HVD is also great for the Paragon with four Tachyon Lances.  Put hard flux on shield, then have lances pierce the shield.

Yes, I want Railguns and Light Needlers, but they are too rare.  I never have enough for all of my ships.  I get forced to settle with junk like Open Market weapons, at least if I do not want to reload a game as soon as a ship dies due to losing rare weapons.  I hope that becomes a thing of the past (at least by endgame) once our colonies can build our own stuff.

[Goumindong]

If the thumper did not suffer from reduced turn rate from firing then it could be pretty good. But it's still ugly.

Not really. It’s a fragmentation weapon without the PD quality. So it’s only really good for shooting down fighters which have *** armor and and no shields additionally only on AI ships.

So why would you not just use flak (or dual flak) instead?

[Megas]

Not really. It’s a fragmentation weapon without the PD quality. So it’s only really good for shooting down fighters which have *** armor and and no shields additionally only on AI ships.

So why would you not just use flak (or dual flak) instead?

Thumper is fast, and it can help finish off ships.  When used against the player, the shots are small and hard to spot.  You may think you are safe and have shields down, but then all of sudden you take damage fast then die.  Early in the game when player has not found enough good weapons, the trifecta of Arbalest, Heavy Mortar, and Thumper is effective enough on an Enforcer, and possibly Eagle (if acquired sooner than good weapons).  Both Heavy Mortar and Arbalest are slow.  Thumper is fast.

You use flak mostly for PD.  If you use Thumper, you want it to compliment your slow Arbalest and/or Heavy Mortar combo.  All three have the same range of 700.

Before 0.8.x, Thumper was so bad that anything else, and possibly no weapon at all, was better.  Now, it is mediocre but not completely useless until player has collected enough rare weapons to outfit everything and more.

[Goumindong]

Not really. It’s a fragmentation weapon without the PD quality. So it’s only really good for shooting down fighters which have *** armor and and no shields additionally only on AI ships.

So why would you not just use flak (or dual flak) instead?

Thumper is fast, and it can help finish off ships.  When used against the player, the shots are small and hard to spot.  You may think you are safe and have shields down, but then all of sudden you take damage fast then die.  Early in the game when player has not found enough good weapons, the trifecta of Arbalest, Heavy Mortar, and Thumper is effective enough on an Enforcer, and possibly Eagle (if acquired sooner than good weapons).  Both Heavy Mortar and Arbalest are slow.  Thumper is fast.

You use flak mostly for PD.  If you use Thumper, you want it to compliment your slow Arbalest and/or Heavy Mortar combo.  All three have the same range of 700.

Before 0.8.x, Thumper was so bad that anything else, and possibly no weapon at all, was better.  Now, it is mediocre but not completely useless until player has collected enough rare weapons to outfit everything and more.

Ships don't really have enough hull for that to matter and generally once you're shooting at hull things like DPS and OP efficiency don't really matter because ships are disabled. The tough part is punching through armor and shields and well... there isn't much reason to have a Thumper instead of another Heavy Mortar