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[Besharia]

I like high tech ships but I hate being railroaded into using energy weapons which to me are just crappy and inefficient. Is there a mod that allows high tech ships to use kinetic and other weapons? I was thinking of installing Nexerelin if that helps. I really want to dink around with combat more but I can't stand lasers.

[TaLaR]

Starlight Cabal ships from Underworld mod. Somewhat hard to obtain and appropriately overpowered, with crown jewel being the Starlight Odyssey (original missile slots are universal on it + usual for Cabal 5% boost across the board).
There is also Aurora with frontal small universals, Afflictor with a bit of extra OP and 5th Reaper slot, and other less important ships.

If you just want fast + good weapons (but crap shields), Blackrock mod also fits the bill. Desdinova is one of best player ships overall, though it can't quite deal with capitals in a straight fight (being only a DE coming close to that is already quite an achievement).

DME is fast, but unimpressive otherwise. That is unless you pick Deserter start to get some Blade Breaker blueprints (Black Lancer cruiser is ridiculous super-Eagle. Starter frigate is a mini-Medusa that trades some raw power for more speed).

[SCC]

I like high tech ships but I hate being railroaded into using energy weapons which to me are just crappy and inefficient.

I don't think you realise what's the point of high-tech ships...
You are free to check out all midline factions from mods, though (Blackrock Driveyards, Diable Avionics, Dassault-Mikoyan Engineering, Interstellar Imperium, Mayasuran Navy). Or just embrace the luddic path.

[Plantissue]

I like high tech ships but I hate being railroaded into using energy weapons which to me are just crappy and inefficient.

I don't think you realise what's the point of high-tech ships...

What do you think the point of high tech ships are?

[Igncom1]

Bubbles and beams! 

[connortron7]

I like high tech ships but I hate being railroaded into using energy weapons which to me are just crappy and inefficient.

I don't think you realise what's the point of high-tech ships...

What do you think the point of high tech ships are?

fodder for lowtech ships

[SCC]

What do you think the point of high tech ships are?

Good ships — bad weapons. It's a matter of balance.

[Goumindong]

I mean... energy weapons are neither crappy nor inefficient. They routinely have better flux to kill than comparable ballistic weapons.

What they arent is speciaized. And this means that you should have fewer OP spent on weapons as you have no need to provide flux efficient armor and shield damage and more OP spent on flux and ship mods.

The medusa is an example. If youre not SO* then what should your fit look like?

Well youve got a few options but we always do a few things

1) slam vents: 75 OP left. Flux dissipation is now 600. Effective 480
2) shield conversion: front and/or hardened shields(we do this before slamming caps). 69 to 57 OP left: effective flux dissipation to 540


57 OP can buy 2 light needler and 2 phase lance with 9 OP left over for caps or rear pd.  Total flux/second is 821 so we are over flux but we still get some efficient ballistics. Combat strategy is “skim in, dump LNs and then if shields are high, lance. Else skim out”. This is very much a player ship.

For a less skill oriented build lets consider that the AI is good with omni shields and so instead make something more lasting

2 pulse lasers bring OP to 37. Flux usage is 667 which is slightly over effective flux. 2 sabots in the front bring us to 31 because they dont use flux and add some dueling power. Flux distributor brings our effective dissipation to 600. And down to 23 OP. two burst PD in the rear bring us to 9 OP and then we add 9 caps. Alternately we can stabilize shields for 630 effective flux but only 3 caps. Or tweak necessary rear PD. Or drop the missiles in the front for more caps.

Either way we should find we have a lot more ability to ignore weapon slots than a hammerhead. Which needs OP spent on KE and HE damage in order to compete.

*and its soooo good SO + 2x HB+ nothing else but vents and caps

[TaLaR]

Medusa is an atypical high-tech ship. While it's kinetic ballistics amount is lacking compared to Midline/Lowtech DEs, at least it is there. Aurora or Odyssey don't have that.

[Goumindong]

Medusa is an atypical high-tech ship. While it's kinetic ballistics amount is lacking compared to Midline/Lowtech DEs, at least it is there. Aurora or Odyssey don't have that.

They also dont need it because upgrading in tier for energy weapons makes them more efficient and upgrading the size of fast ships let them more easily exploit their inherent advantages. I am reasonably confident that that AI medusa will outfight comparable hammerheads. If not head to head then definitely on a fleet type basis

You might notice that the AI medusa i’ve set does not have small ballistics on it. And the player one does not have what are considered the efficient or “good” ballistic weapons.

[TaLaR]

But AI is not good at exploiting speed. And suffers greatly whenever it is outranged. Even by ships it could actually crush at close range at some armor cost for approach.
Example: player piloted Conquest cautiously peeling a Grav+Autopulse Radiant, without ever raising own flux. If you do raise flux (by firing too much), AI will think it's time to attack and defeat you in close combat, where Radiant holds absolute advantage (and you won't be able to retreat because you need extra time to fully reverse speed vector). But if you cushion initial rush by backpedaling and never allow Radiant to fully disengage/drop flux levels, Conquest can win.

AI Medusa needs to go SO + Aggressive to win 1v1 against a Hammerhead (that uses a normal fleet-optimized non-SO, no-missiles build). Not a guarantee even then.

[Goumindong]

The AI is really good at “exploiting” speed in that ships with it tend to die a lot less than those that do. Medusa are far more usable in fleets lategame than hammerheads. Especially as any-flank/flank.

Its true that its not good at recognizing range band advantage unless its within one (which makes it bad in 1v1) but its quite good at utilizing speed to survive and dogpile (which makes it good in 2v2+)

[intrinsic_parity]

Energy weapons are definitely inefficient, there's no way to argue that point, the numbers are just worse. Almost none of them have better than 1x efficiency, and most are significantly worse than that. That means you're converting your dissipation into damage less efficiently. When I compare ships, I add ~30-50% to their dissipation in my head if they have access to ballistics.

For comparison, a heavy mortar + heavy needler do 610 dps to shields for 380 flux/sec (at 22 OP) vs two pulse lasers at 606 dps for 666 flux/sec (20 OP). Armor penetration cant be determined as exactly because it changes depending on the current armor value, but at 500 armor (very normal destroyer number), the two pulse lasers are doing something like ~100 dps (.166 damage multiplier with 606 dps) and the one heavy mortar is doing like ~134.5 dps (.3 damage mult with 440 dps vs armor) + 18.75 from needler (minimum mult of .15 and 125 dps vs armor) so the dps is better for the ballistics and the efficiency is also better for ballistics. Vs. hull, pulse lasers again have the dps advantage (606 dps for 666 fluc/sec) but the ballistics are still more efficient (470 dps for 380 flux/sec).

You just get much better performance for similar OP with ballistics particularly medium and small ballistics. High tech ships have access to inferior weapons to balance their superior stats, systems and mobility. My experience with AI high tech ships is that they wander off chasing a frigate and get killed by fighters or reinforcements.

[TaLaR]

AI's idea of survival is:
- approach enemy and try fighting it.
- if at high flux start retreating.

This means that AI needs short enough disengage time that remaining flux capacity is not overwhelmed in process. AI does not plan in advance for any of this. You can't really fool-proof an AI ship (give it enough capacity/speed to always be able to retreat). It will always find a 4xTL Paragon or whatever can overwhelm it near instantly to die to, unless explicitly ordered to 'Avoid'.

Which makes long range Eagles about as good at surviving as faster Auroras, if not better. Slower, but need to travel less until they leave enemy attack range. Less likely to get cornered by longer ranged enemy and need to retreat in the first place. Less likely to get stranded with mobility system on cooldown (it's shorter).

Medusa may be better than Hammerhead at surviving a capital fight, but not enough to make one a good DP investment for this kind of fights. And is prone to spontaneously dying to Doom/station mines and fighters - which is mostly a question of shield coverage OR overwhelming PD (which Medusa can't have) for AI ships.

[Goumindong]

Energy weapons are definitely inefficient, there's no way to argue that point, the numbers are just worse. Almost none of them have better than 1x efficiency, and most are significantly worse than that. That means you're converting your dissipation into damage less efficiently. When I compare ships, I add ~30-50% to their dissipation in my head if they have access to ballistics.

For comparison, a heavy mortar + heavy needler do 610 dps to shields for 380 flux/sec (at 22 OP) vs two pulse lasers at 606 dps for 666 flux/sec (20 OP). Armor penetration cant be determined as exactly because it changes depending on the current armor value, but at 500 armor (very normal destroyer number), the two pulse lasers are doing something like ~100 dps (.166 damage multiplier with 606 dps) and the one heavy mortar is doing like ~134.5 dps (.3 damage mult with 440 dps vs armor) + 18.75 from needler (minimum mult of .15 and 125 dps vs armor) so the dps is better for the ballistics and the efficiency is also better for ballistics. Vs. hull, pulse lasers again have the dps advantage (606 dps for 666 fluc/sec) but the ballistics are still more efficient (470 dps for 380 flux/sec).

You just get much better performance for similar OP with ballistics particularly medium and small ballistics. High tech ships have access to inferior weapons to balance their superior stats, systems and mobility. My experience with AI high tech ships is that they wander off chasing a frigate and get killed by fighters or reinforcements.

Weapon accuracy and projectile speed matter in weapon efficiency. The heavy mortar, while a very efficient weapon on paper fails to hit even shields a signficant amount of time. Pulse lasers hit the same spot every time.