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[TaLaR]

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.

DE and above generally have no problems hitting each-other, especially on shield. Also AI simply doesn't try to dodge individual projectiles. But AI does move out of firing arc if speed allows (Hounds like to do this).
Also HMortar will miss a lot against a retreating target, but this only prolongs the fight (fast ship has already lost flux war by this point).

[Goumindong]

Only in a 1v1 and well. Even then i regularly see HM misssing DE shields

[Daynen]

Energy weapons save weapon slots and fire groups.  They don't care what they're hitting; they always do full damage.  Ever feel heartbroken at seeing your reaper barrage hit the shields of a wandering blocker?  Ever wish your railguns actually DID something to that capital armor?  Energy weapons have neither problem.  You pay for them in flux costs, but they're pulling double duty and ALWAYS applying pressure no matter the enemy defenses.  the AI can flicker shields like a pro, blocking explosive stuff and absorbing kinetic at will.  With energy weapons it can't afford to drop its shields because you'll be shredding it.  Try autopulse lasers with extended magazines and tell me those don't get the job done.  Have a few of your AI ships sit around with graviton beams and high intensity lasers and watch the enemy REFUSE to drop their shield for fear of being carved like a christmas ham...

Which they will be anyway when your weapons overload them.

[Ishman]

I don't normally drop into these discussions, but you do realize the HIL is a large energy weapon, with FIVE HUNDRED he dps?

It's the strongest energy weapon in vanilla by far, and is suitably hard to fit - there are only three vanilla high tech ships that can even fit it, the apogee, odyssey, and paragon.

And this is even considering it doesn't do hard flux damage.

[intrinsic_parity]

I think plasma is the best energy weapon. HIL barely does more than a graviton against shields and costs 5x as much flux to fire. You need to get through shields before you can do damage to armor. Still a very good weapon in the right situation though. Large energy weapons in general are very good since the buffs in the last patch, although that is biased by the fact that all the ships that can mount large energy weapons are very strong because of very good stats and systems.

As to accuracy affecting efficiency, the efficiencies aren't even close to begin with, so marginal effects from accuracy aren't swinging the balance. The shield efficiency of the ballistics I mentioned is like double the energy efficiency even with HE damage weighing it down. The heavy needler by itself is like 80% of the shield damage of two pulse lasers for 1/3 the flux. Even if the heavy mortar fired continuously and never hit a shot, you would still be dealing more efficient damage to shields. The hm is definitely hitting probably 70% of the time minimum on destroyers (depending on range and speed) too, probably more for slow destroyers. It only really struggles vs frigates. I would also point out that it is mostly missing at ranges where the pulse laser would be out of range to begin with. If you get into <600 range, hm will be missing a lot less.

High tech ships are good because they have tons of dissipation and capacity that lets them club enemies to death with inefficient weapons. IF they could mount more efficient weapons, they would be much stronger. Energy weapons are intentionally weaker from an efficiency and range standpoint to balance out high tech ships very good flux and mobility stats. I don't see why that's controversial. A high tech ship using energy weapons is very good, but not because the weapons are particularly good. 

[Plantissue]

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

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

You cannot separate the value of a ship from performance of the ship hull and the weapons it can have; both are considered for a "good ship".

______

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.

Didn't we all had this conversation before and it did turn out that an AI non-SO Medusa can beat an AI Hammerhead 1v1? It was just that you never gave your Medusa enough caps. I'll have to see if I can find the thread. Edit: I was wrong it was with SO.

Edit2: No loadout design skill, so 95 OP with 70% CR Medusa.
2 Pulse Laser, 2 Railguns, 2 LRPD forward, 1 Burst PD Laser rear. 18 Caps, 18 Vents. ITU. Beats sim AI Hammerhead with the Heavy Mortar Railgun in 132 seconds.
Edit 3: 2 Pulse lasers, 2 Ion Cannon, 2 PD Laser, 1 Burst PD Laser, 20 Caps, 20 Vents, ITU. Beats sim AI Hammerhead in 188 seconds.
Edit 4: 2 Pulse Laser, 2 PD Laser, 1 Burst PD Laser, 20 Caps, 20 Vents, ITU, Hardened Shields. Beats sim AI Hammerhead in 370 seconds.
Edit 5: 2 Pulse lasers, 2 LDMG, 2 PD Laser, 1 Burst PD Laser 12 Caps, 20 Vents, ITU Hardened, Shields. Caveat; 2 Pulse Lasers 2 LDMG are on same weapon group. Beats sim AI Hammerhead in 100 seconds.

______

I see Heavy Mortars miss destroyer hulls regularily. Especially when shields are off. When shields are down, you want to hit the hull for obvious reasons. Cruisers are usually fat and slow enough to be hit with shields down, but even so the travel time and accuracy is excrutiating to watch. That said I do use heavy mortars but only becuase they fill the need in a reasonable range and available HE source for medium mounts. Accuracy does matter for smaller targets. For the most part it doesn't matter too much what the flux efficiency of an individual weapon is as long as the ship hull itself has enough flux dissipation. Taking ship hulls into account I consider the "pulse lasers" to be anti-armour inefficient not anti-shield inefficient, but then there are many high damage energy weapons that do well against armour, so energy weapon mounts have options for both.

[TaLaR]

Sim Hammerhead is too low mark. It's only fair to require an optimized Medusa to be able to defeat an optimized Hammerhead, if it is to replace one in my fleet.

A decent Hammerhead:

Spoiler

[close]

(could also remove rear Vulcans for extra caps, since Hammerhead doesn't need them vs Medusa)

[Igncom1]

To be fair the hammerhead is only the benchmark for destroyers because it combines general destroyer mobility with temporary cruiser levels of fire-power.

It's a fantastic ship no doubt. I'm still a sunder fan-boy when it comes to late-game support destroyers however. As the sunders ability to boost it's battleship sized energy weapon is amazing.

Energy weapons suffer from poor efficiently in my anecdotal opinion, but are saved by high tech ships flux pool. Mid-line ships are the ones that suffer the most when trying to use them and often have to stick to the more conservative choices when using them. If high tech ships could use full ballistic loadouts, they'd be unstoppable. High flux caps/vents means high defence and attack after all.

As for most small hightech ships. Depending on how long you want them to operate for before retreating them due to CR, you might honestly be better off with missiles and AM blasters over more sustainable weapon choices. Alpha strike the enemy and then run away.

[Plantissue]

Sorry Talar, but changing the rules by changing sim hammerhead (which is reasonably good) is unfair. You imposed rules like no SO, and no missiles on Medusa, it's only fair that we assume and use the sim that is available to everyone. It's kind of silly you go impose two big restrictions on the Medusa, then say gotcha!, got to use "my" optimised Hammerhead with rare weapons to test against. if you wanted somebody to use your Hammerhead you should had posted that first. Not interested in someone who shifts their goalposts. In any case the "test" is biased against the medusa as the temporary burst damage of the Hammerheads ship system wards away anything that it can inflict half of total hard flux on and you given the onus on the medusa to destroy; there is no way that Hammerhead can ever destroy a Medusa. Anyways, no matter how proud you are of your personal hammerhead, SO Sabot heavy Blaster Medusa will beat your Hammerhead.

[TaLaR]

SO and Sabots are heavy costs - they make the Medusa good for only 1 or 2 duels, then it's out of PPT and missiles. This Hammerhead build on other head is fit for general fleet use with reasonably long PPT.

I never said that Medusa can't fight sim Hammerhead specifically. Sim builds are weak overall, and are useful only for convenience of rough power estimates.

[Plantissue]

You can artificially impose restriction, I can freely open them then. You change the situation, I can change it too. Can your Hammerhead even destroy the sim Medusa? Is that fair to consider since Medusa is 2 OP more? Is it fair to suddenly change the rules after it has been done by saying that now we got to use your own personal Hammerhead? Is it fair to put a 1v1 sim situation that others cannot test? Is it fair since 1v1 sim, though a useful tool belays the real effects in large battles? You can posit a test then change it, I too can change it too to fit whatever circumstances we wish to test. Does it even matter since generally what you want the AI to do is survive whilst dealing a reasonable amount of damage to exploit?

I agree with you that the AI is not good at exploiting phase jump skimmer and suffers greatly whenever it is outranged, but this is not the right way to go about it.

In essence you are asking the AI Medusa to flux out the Hammerhead 1v1 before the Hammerhead can deal half of Medusa hard flux - only that the hammerhead can double its flux output. So you are asking the AI Medusa to deal a multiple of 4 times of your own KE optimised Hammerheads' flux damage shield ratio, but without the tools to do so.

[TaLaR]

Can your Hammerhead even destroy the sim Medusa?

It's guaranteed not to lose and most likely won't take any damage from sim Medusa. But since it's slower than Medusa and AI is not good at pursuit/trapping, it's unlikely to win other than by PPT.

If I were to trade HMortar and some caps for HMauler (which is actually more likely to be used in a campaign fleet), then Hammerhead would probably win. But this makes the Hammerhead weaker to pressure of SO Medusa, so I used HMortar as baseline for duelist.

Is it fair to put a 1v1 sim situation that others cannot test?

It's easy to add custom variant to sim. You could do the same if you wanted to. Anyway, here is my mini-mod

Spoiler

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1vwnbAEHTWtbPzjYDTzY1FlQQVbSR18D8

[close]

Does it even matter since generally what you want the AI to do is survive whilst dealing a reasonable amount of damage to exploit?

SO builds fail the 'survive long enough' part by simply not having the PPT.

[Plantissue]

I am sorry, but I am not interested in your mod or ship build advert. Perhaps that was your intention all along and perhaps I'll take you up on it another time.

I agree with you that the AI is not good at exploiting phase skimmer and suffers greatly whenever it is outranged, but this is not the right way to go about it.

In essence you are asking the AI Medusa to flux out the Hammerhead 1v1 before the Hammerhead can deal half of Medusa hard flux - only that the hammerhead can double its flux output. So you are asking the AI Medusa to deal a multiple of 4 times of your own KE optimised Hammerheads' flux damage shield ratio, but without the tools to do so.

[Thaago]

Accuracy is one of the main reasons why I've been down on the Heavy Autocannon for non-officer-ed ships. Similar to the Heavy Mortar, its going to miss a decent portion of shots against destroyers and below, though it has the saving grace of its preferred target being shields, which are wider. For that reason I've been swapping them out for HVDs if I can rustle up the weapon and the OP. Nominal efficiency and DPS are lower, but actual efficiency and DPS are higher because of the hit rate against smaller targets. Not to mention the longer range and other benefits. Heavy Needlers are also just better, but they are difficult to find.

With ordinance expertise and gunnery implants accuracy improves by a huge amount, making the mid tier ballistic weapons a lot better.

[SCC]

That's one hell of a thread derailment.
I just wanted to add that DME mod has a semi-hidden blueprint set of Blade Breaker Deserters that basically are high-tech ships with ballistics (or at least were, the last time I checked).