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[sogriffin]

I know this will be like asking everybody what is their favorite flavor of ice cream, but being a new player I'm trying to get a grasp on which weapons work and which don't.  So if everybody could list their favorite energy, kinetic, missile, point defense weapons then I can have a base to start my own analysis.  Thanks

[Mondaymonkey]

which weapons work and which don't.

All weapons works and don't at a same time. It's a rock-paper-scissors-lizard-spock game. Your game style define your favorite gun, not vice versa.

Which is your style?

[sogriffin]

Generally to die horribly. 

[sogriffin]

I understand what you mean, but there still have to be weapons that are better than others, for example: Phase lances seem better to me than Tactical lasers.

[Mondaymonkey]

I understand what you mean, but there still have to be weapons that are better than others, for example: Phase lances seem better to me than Tactical lasers.

Not true. Phase lance is an attack weapon, so it make more damage than TL. Can PL hunt fighters? NO. Can PL suppress small crafts? NO. Can PL reach running enemy beyond 800 distance? NO. Can PL be placed on a small mount? NO. Is PL flux-effective weapon? NO.

But TL IS.

If you prefer fast and devastative attacks more than tactical suppression, then  PL is better to you. Try to use it's larger brother: the tachyon lance.

[Mordodrukow]

Surprisingly, like very small ammount of weapons from vanilla: pd laser, lr pd laser, tactical laser, pulse laser, sabot, reaper, hammer, heavy autocannon, HAG, plasma.

From mods... well, cant remember corret names... Will try to describe:
From Appro-light: some large energy cannon with 1100 (or arund that...) range, 4 sec cd and 1000 dmg. Way better than Tach lance for me.
From D.Mic:
- large twin linear cannon. Deals kinetic dmg, and i like how it looks and feels.
- Also large missile... Chasseur, i guess...
From other mods:
- heavy pulse laser. Cant remember where is it from. But i guess, that from Interstellar Imperium. Very big fan of it (laser, not mod). Can remember one run, where i used Victory-class battleship with twin linears and 6 heavy pulse lasers. Was amazing.
- large flak cannon. I guess, from ship&weapon pack. Again: it is good with the Victory, because of its large ballistic cost reduction.
-

[Plantissue]

Please don't use TL as a shorthand for clarity's sake. Both Tactical Lasers and Tachyon Lance share the same initials.

Anyways, to help a new player, you can use the primary role description as a good description of what role to put it in. For the most part, enough information is given to give a good idea of how they perform without having to use them. The only thing that is missing is weapon speed and wind up time.

As general advice to have weapons which simply work well:

Railgun and Heavy Needler are notably a bit undercosted relatively to their peers at the moment. Other than Light Autocannon, I can't think of any weapons to be avoided. Generally the energy weapons are pretty simple. Just be aware that Point Defence refers to being able to target missiles.

LR PD Laser are good to place for small mounts as they are Point Defence capable. For medium use Pulse Laser for general use, for large use Plasma Cannon for general use.

For ballistic weapons, it's a bit more complicated. For general use, for small mounts, a combination of Light Dual Autocannon or Railgun paired with Light Assault Gun or Light Mortar. For medium mounts, Heavy Needler or Heavy Autocannon or Hypervelocity Driver paired with Heavy Mortar or Heavy Mauler.

Notably, Hypervelocity Driver and Heavy Mauler are relatively low dps, high range weapons and many people favour using them and as they have equal range and they pair very well together. As basic advice, you would want about kinetic damage dps about double of your high explosive dps.

I favour Vulcan Cannon and Dual Flak Cannon/Flak Cannon for anti-missile as small and medium mount choice respectively.

For missile weapons, avoid Annihilator Rocket Launcher. Otherwise most missiles are good choices. Sabot SRM and Sabot SRM Pod are favoured by many.

Also just in case, if you trying to get a grasp on weapons, don't use mods.

[Igncom1]

For late game when I have all the blueprints and can build whatever.

Small Ballistic: Light Dual Machine Gun, Light Assault Gun, Light Needler.

The Light Dual Machine Gun does it all in terms of point defence and close range anti-shield work. Shielded fighters beware! Vulcans are great for point defence vs missiles but only ever take down fighters with sustained fire. DLMG's work nicely as a close range shield killer for a fantastically low cost. The Light Assault Gun is decent for what it does, although a little flux heavy. The Light Needler doesn't have the range of the railgun, but does decently in bursts against small foes. Me liking it might just be a phase however as I usually don't get to use them.


Medium Ballistic: Heavy Machine Gun, Heavy Mauler, Heavy Needler.

The Heavy Machine Gun can be hard to find, but are kinetic gods. They work as PD too! The Heavy Mauler is a powerful artillery cannon that is fantastic even in capital ship fights for it's sheer range. The Heavy Needler doesn't have the range advantage and does basically nothing against armoured foes, but other then that it's fantastic for downing shields.


Large Ballistic: Hellbore Cannon, Storm Needler.

I love the Hellbore Cannon because it does exactly what it's supposed to do for a cheap cost. It deletes armour. The Storm Needler like the rest doesn't have the range advantage, bit it's shield stripping power is incredible.


Small Energy: LR PD Laser, Antimatter Blaster.

Hard to choose for small energy as I often don't have a chance to use them without delegating them all to point defence. Most high tech ships have at least one medium slot or are torpedo boats. The LR PD Laser is cheap, plentiful and has fantastic range. Damage per second is rough however. The Antimatter Blaster is a missile weapon and a guilty pleasure to put where it doesn't belong. I once had two on a conquest.


Medium Energy: Graviton Beam

I find energy weapons hard but that might be because I don't often know what I am doing with them. But one thing I know is that the Graviton Beam is a must for ships with any energy that that does soft flux. They can't kill armour, but just about every other energy weapon can!


Large Energy: Autopulse Laser, High Intensity Laser.

The Autopulse Laser is, in my opinion, the best overall hard flux energy large weapon. It's the gun that let's Paragons duel Radients and live. The High Intensity Laser is fantastic when mounted on sunders for their supporting fire-power in capital fights. While other ships tank damage and deal with shields, the sunders kill any exposed targets with their pin point laser beams. Great when used in support of anti shield kinetics.


Small Missile: Harpoon MRM, Sabot SRM

The Harpoon MRM is the general purpose missile that does it all. Great when massed with eccms. The Sabot SRM breaks the game by provding massive burst kinetic damage that is very hard to avoid for no flux cost to use.


Medium Missile: Harpoon MRM Pod, Sabot SRM Pod

Same as above, but more of them.


Large Missile: Locust SRM Launcher

Ravenous swarm missiles that devour entire flight wings and smaller ships alike. Great fun and easy enough for the AI to use.

[bobucles]

Small weapon: Reaper
Medium weapon: Typhoon Reaper
Large weapon: Cyclone Reaper

You're welcome.

[SCC]

Can PL hunt fighters? NO. Can PL suppress small crafts? NO. Can PL reach running enemy beyond 800 distance? NO. Can PL be placed on a small mount? NO. Is PL flux-effective weapon? NO.

I actually use Phase Lance in both anti-fighter and anti-frigate roles. It reliably overwhelms fighters with its high burst and 2-3 of them can make short work of frigates, too. Phase Lance is also much more flux efficient when striking armour. Taclaser is more versatile, but pays for it in power.

My "weapons of habit" are railgun (so good at everything), both single and dual flaks, HVD, mjolnir (not for AI, though), ion beam, plasma cannon, tachyon lance (the alpha strike!), hammers, sabots, locust. I use most guns in the game, but those are the ones I have soft spots for.

[Grievous69]

To avoid repetition I'll just say my playstyle uses weapons combined from bobucles and SCC's posts, minus the Ion beams. Now one thing I don't see mentioned yet is the Heavy blaster, a medium energy weapon that's almost a heavy weapon. Just looking at the stats you might think there's far better options since it has such bad efficiency but the catch is some ships really do good with it because of lack of mounts. It just chews through anything, only other energy weapon that comes close is Plasma cannon but that's far more expensive and on a bigger mount. I can't imagine an Aurora or a Shrike without it. It even works on other ships like Tempest and Apogee before you get something stronger.

[oorek]

dunno why people are saying phase lance and ion pulser are bad

https://streamable.com/bkovp
https://streamable.com/az1dv

vanilla balance in general is thrown off by missiles being way, way, way, way, way too good, but lots of stuff is usable for certain cases.
generally a good idea to stay away from EMP weapons, except for salamanders, or when you're fighting droneships. they are pretty awful against most other ships

antimatter blasters are very broken, especially on phase ships (try 10x AM blaster Doom for a near-godmode loadout)

heavy blasters/mining blasters are very broken on safety-override ships, particularly big ones
https://streamable.com/xpeu6

[Grievous69]

dunno why people are saying phase lance and ion pulser are bad

https://streamable.com/bkovp
https://streamable.com/az1dv

No one is arguing that? And come on you're fighting a frigate that's supposed to be a long range support. You could fit literally anything on that Tempest and it would win. Who knew one on the most advanced frigates in the game can kill a fly...

[oorek]

And come on you're fighting a frigate that's supposed to be a long range support. You could fit literally anything on that Tempest and it would win. Who knew one on the most advanced frigates in the game can kill a fly...

tempest with 2x phase lance 1-pops almost every frigate besides the monitor, it's just a quick simulator example

[Megas]

Small missiles:  I tend to use either Annihilators or Sabots.  Occasionally Salamanders.  If piloting Afflictor, I want Reapers.
Small ballistics, PD:  Usually Vulcans.  Some Safety Override loadouts want dual machine guns.
Small ballistics, kinetics:  Railgun.  Best range, best damage, best accuracy, and cheaper than light needler.
Small ballistics, HE:  Usually Light Mortar.  Ships tend to have more mounts than OP and/or flux can support, and two Light Mortars is cheaper and more efficient than one Light Assault Gun.
Small energy:  This is mostly about PD since small energy is usually terrible for conventional brawling.  I take either burst PD or IR Pulse Lasers (with IPDAI hullmod).

Medium missiles:  Usually Annihilator or Sabot pods.
Medium ballistics, PD:  Ideally, dual flak, but I may use regular flak if short on OP or flux.
Medium ballistics, kinetics:  Varies by the range band.  For general use, either Heavy Needler if I have enough OP to spare or Heavy Autocannon if I do not.  Sometimes, I take Arbalest if the ship cannot handle 200+ flux/sec or do not have other weapons to match 800 range.
Medium ballistics, HE:  Usually Heavy Mortar.  Ever since Heavy Mauler lost fire rate and DPS, I barely use it now.  Occasionally use Assault Chaingun for niche builds.
Medium energy:  For high-tech ships, Heavy blaster if the ship has the flux stats, pulse laser otherwise.  For midline, either beams for range, or left empty.

Large missiles:  Locusts or bust.  Locusts are the anti-everything missile, although bigger targets need their armor stripped first.
Large ballistics:  Varies by other weapons on the ship.  For ships that lack dissipation, probably Hellbore or Devastator.  For others, Mark IX, HAG, or Mjolnir depending on other weapons mounted.  For example, Mark IX and HAG combo, or Mjolnir and Heavy Needler (yes, Heavy, not Storm) combo.
Large energy:  For Paragon, at least two tachyon lances because kinetics putting hard flux on shields makes lance partially unblockable.  For others, usually plasma cannon.  May use High Intensity Laser occasionally.

I actually use Phase Lance in both anti-fighter and anti-frigate roles. It reliably overwhelms fighters with its high burst and 2-3 of them can make short work of frigates, too.

Yes, Phase Lance is primarily a point-defense weapon in disguise.  Not against missiles, but against fighters and frigates.